The Journal
by Bree Colbern
Summary: Captain America has always tried to not let people fuss over him when he has an injury, but what if this time he takes it too far? And what if he meets someone that reminds him too much of his past? And what happens when he starts having a Journal, and the others read it? They find out something they really rather they didn't know.


**Hi lovelies! Please enjoy!**

 **Disclaimer: I own not a thing...**

 **Summary: "Captain America has always tried not to let people fuss over him when he has an injury, but what if this time he takes it too far? And what if he meets someone that reminds him too much of his past? And what happens when he starts having a Journal, and the others read it? They find out something they really rather they didn't know."**

* * *

Steve sighed as he shifted uncomfortably in the hospital chair, trying to ignore the fresh wound on his stomach.

They had just finished up fighting some crazed lunatic who had the 'brilliant' idea of trying to blow up half of Manhattan just because he had an axe to grind. Colonel Manes, an ex-warhero from the Vietnam War, had sought out to get revenge on an old war buddy.

Why he had tried to kill his old buddy, and half of Manhattan's population, Steve had no clue. Manes had just simply said it was 'personal'. Steve couldn't fathom the thought of wanting to kill an old friend, it was so corrupted.

But then again, so many things were.

At the moment Clint was in the S.H.I.E.L.D hospital room behind Steve getting his battle wounds checked out. Thankfully, it appeared to be only a few burns and bruises, just like the rest of the team.

They were all extremely fortunate that that was the extent of the injuries, considering how dangerous the mission had really been. Well, Steve hadn't made it out quite as fortunate, though.

* * *

 _"Tony, I kinda' need your help down here!" Steve said through the comm, while dodging one of Manes attempted stabs with a knife. They were currently fighting in some kind of underground network of tunnels._

 _And right after Steve had managed to stop the bomb with Tony's instructions through the comms, he had come face to face with Manes, an extremely strong guy with expert war tactics._

 _Thankfully, Steve knew all of them, and then some form his own war experience. But Manes had pulled out a knife, and kept coming at Steve, who had unfortunately lost his shield somewhere along the tunnels when he had been trying to get Lieutenant Shane, the guy whom Manes sought revenge for, to the point where Tasha could get him to the Quinjet up above the tunnels._

 _He dodged another attempted stab and kicked the guy in the ribs, earning a groan of pain and a crunch of bones breaking from Manes._

 _"Afraid not, Capsicle. Got a problem of my own to deal with. Can't come swooping in and save you." Cap grunted as Manes still came at him with a knife. No matter what he did he couldn't shake the guy lose._

 _And he wasn't going to kill the guy, who most likely had suffered some traumatic experience form the war causing him to be this way._

 _"Tony, I'm serious." He said right before the guy was able to land a swift kick to his jaw, surprisingly not breaking it. Steve fired back with a few punches and kicks of his own._

 _"So am I. I can't just come and save you right now, I'm a little busy trying to fight off some bad guys who are trying to turn Clint into a shish kebab" He certainly knew what that was like, he thought as he dodged et another attempted stab from Manes._

 _Slight anger boiled in Cap as he continued fighting, and running out of breath. Tony never obeyed his orders, not matter what. And it was starting to take it's toll on Cap._

 _"Fine. Just-oh!" He groaned as the guy somehow managed to grab hold of arm and snap it out of it's socket with a loud pop. He took in a breath through clenched teeth that sounded like a hiss as pain erupted through him, and white flashes tried to blur his vision, but he still saw the smirk on Manes dirty face. "Just hurry and come down here as fast as you can!" He said breathlessly through gritted teeth._

 _"Sure thing, Spangles." Tony said in his usual annoyed tone. Thankfully, it was his left arm that was out of it's socket, so he could still fight fairly well. He could feel his arm already trying to heal, and he knew he had to pop it back into it's socket before it healed to much, otherwise it would hurt like hell._

 _Manes kicked Steve in the ribs, knocking all of the air out of him as he doubled over. Suddenly, Manes threw the knife and it landed right in his stomach. Pain started coming over him in vicious waves of agony as it felt like it had hit something that was probably pretty important._

 _He started panting trying to get in hoarse breaths as he stumbled backwards in the rather dark tunnels. He knew he was losing the battle, and since Tony wasn't coming to help for a while, he had to do something drastic._

 _He wiped away the blood on his lip and ignored the blood trickling down the side of his cheek and the blood starting to pour out from around the knife. Manes laughed evilly and smirked at Steve who was having a hard time standing back up from falling onto his one knee out of pain and exhaustion._

 _"You're beaten, Cap! Just admit it! You may have stopped Shane and Manhattan from tasting my revenge, but you will not be so lucky! You are nothing but a weak, worthless, stupid little idiot! No, Captain America is worthless! And weak! You are nothing like your teammates! You don't even belong on the Avengers, let alone lead them!"_

 _Steve groaned as he finally got on back up. He tried to ignore Manes cruel words, because he knew he was just trying to strike fear into his heart, but he couldn't help but let some of the words sink in._

 _Because he knew they were true. He knew he didn't belong with the superior people on the Avengers._

 _But he shoved down his doubts as a wave of adrenaline kicked in and he charged Manes, and grabbed him around the torso as well as he could with one arm. He heard an 'oof' come from Manes from the sudden impact._

 _He threw him to the ground and before Manes could get a word out, he punched him once knocking him out. Steve took a moment to catch his breath, just now coming to the realization of what he had just done._

 _He moved to the side and sat back, panting heavily. His arm was on fire and his stomach's pain intensified like a raging forest fire. He knew he needed to put it back into it's socket now, before it healed too much._

 _Even though pain was grappling at him from all directions, trying to grab a hold and control him. He grabbed his left arm with his right and clenched his teeth as he stood up._

 _He took a deep breath, dreading the next few seconds immensely, before ramming it into cement wall. He winced and clenched his teeth harder to stop from screaming. He took another deep breath and did it again._

 _As soon as his shoulder connected with the rough wall, he heard a loud pop. He stifled a shout and bit his tongue so hard that it bled some. He fell back down to the floor and still panted heavily. He shot a glance at Manes who was still completely unconscious._

 _He hesitantly looked down at the knife in his stomach and knew it needed to come out, too. He waited a moment to recover from his shoulder just being popped back into it's socket, before slowly wrapping his fingers around handle of the knife._

 _A serrated knife._

 _The only reason he knew was because every time he breathed, he could feel the sharp edges cut deeper into him. He took a deep breath and then pulled the knife out with a muffled scream of pain._

 _He doubled over, clutching his unwounded side, feeling the blood start pouring out. He took deep breaths, trying to calm down, but it was taking too long to work._

 _After a few minutes of pure agony that wasn't relenting it's reign on him, he leaned against the back of the wall. He tried putting pressure on the wound but nothing worked._

 _Suddenly, a light shone down the tunnel and he heard a whir of mechanical sounds and knew just who that had to be. He also heard the sound of someone's gait heading towards them, and smiled in relief._

 _Hawkeye was okay._

 _He tried to stand up, but collapsed against the wall. He got a better grip on himself, and position, before trying to stand again. And much to his surprise and delight, he was able to stand. He still had to lean against the wall for support, but hey, one battle at a time._

 _He did his best to cover the gaping wound in his stomach with his arms. The last thing he wanted was for people to start checking him out and asking him things like, 'are you okay?' or ' what happened?'._

 _So instead he put on his best stoic looking face when Tony, in his full Iron Man armor, of course, and Hawkeye came running up to him, only to see Manes unconscious on the floor._

 _"Looks like you were fine without us." Tony said as he flipped hi mask up to reveal some blood and a few bruises but other than that he appeared fine, Clint, too. At least they were okay, now he just wondered about Bruce and Tasha._

 _"How are the others?"_

 _"Oh, fine. Bruce said he has a hangover like headache from coming out of the Hulk. But he doesn't have like a concussion or anything. And Tasha, well, you know her." Tony said with an eye roll and Steve chuckled._

 _She just might possibly be the toughest one out of all of them, much to Tony's disgust. Once, he'd claimed women had no skills for the battlefield, and Tasha had simply smiled sweetly and nodded, leaving Steve with a feeling of impending doom._

 _And well, the next morning when Tony woke up, his hands were in chains and he was dangling from the chandelier in the living room with them._

 _"How about you? You been holding up?" Clint asked and Steve smiled, mostly trying to hide a wince from the pain. He nodded._

 _"Yeah, I'm fine. Glad the others are too." Tony and Clint both eyed him carefully, and suddenly Cap felt extremely nervous, hoping they wouldn't figure out he'd just lied to them._

 _"What happened to your head?" Clint said as he took a step closer. Steve would have brought a hand up to see what he meant, but for one his hands were covering that bleeding wound on his stomach, and his hand would be covered in blood from the wound on his stomach._

 _Then he remembered the blood trickling down the side of his head, and he had forgotten about it ever since he got stabbed._

 _"Oh, it's nothing. I just accidentally hit it on the side of the tunnel. It's dark in here." he said with a chuckle, trying to deflect their interest. Clint still looked unsure, but said nothing more to Steve's relief._

 _"Okay, so let's get this guy to the police, and then we'll return to S.H.I.E.L.D and you guys can get checked out. He heard simultaneous groans._

 _"Oh, come on. We're fine."_

 _"Clint." Steve said as he stared him down, which was difficult considering it was so dark. Clint rolled his eyes and started tying Manes up._

 _"Fine._ Mom _." Clint said and Steve smirked as he continued holding as much blood in as he could on his side without them noticing. He was in for a long night..._

* * *

The pain was excruciating in his abdomen right now, but he did his best to control it, because it wasn't his biggest problem right now anyway. Those words that Manes had said, it released something deep down inside of him that he thought he had buried.

" _You are nothing but a weak, worthless, stupid little idiot_ "Those were the exact same words his father had said to him once, and it bothered him.

A lot more than he was willing to admit. The door next to Steve opened and he jerked slightly. He stood up when he noticed Bruce was the one who had come out. He was careful not to move to much, because of the bandage on his side.

When they had come to the Helicarrier, Steve had asked one of the agents, (while the others weren't around) if he could have some bandage for some 'bruised' ribs. On the ride over, he had slipped on a sweatshirt to cover up the wound. Thankfully, no one had noticed when some of the blood had seeped through the sweatshirt.

He knew it was fairly serious to be bleeding that much, but he didn't want people to be fussing over him, especially when he could heal pretty fast with the super serum. So he had wrapped his wound himself while his teammates got the proper care. But he was glad that no one had helped him.

"How is he?"

"Oh, he's Barton. Fussing over why he had to get checked out and then complaining about a headache he's got." Steve huffed. Classic Barton. "But other than that he's fine. So is everyone else." The doctor sighed and rubbed the back of his neck.

"I just wished you'd get yourself checked out." Steve's hand instinctively went up to the bandage wrapped around his torso.

"I'm fine, Bruce." He sighed again with a nod this time. Tony walked down the hall and came up to them, but not before winking at a young blonde nurse who had walked by him blushing. His wink causing her to stifle a giggle with her hand.

Steve almost rolled his eyes and he knew Bruce felt the same. But Steve still smiled, one reason, to greet Tony, and the second reason being because it cracked him up that people act like that.

"Hey Green, Spangles." Tony said as he walked up to them. Cap and Bruce nodded in reply. "Woah, what happened to you?" Tony said, oblivious because he himself had just come out of a room.

"Just a few bruised ribs."

"Tony will you please convince him to get them checked out? They might be fractured." Bruce said with a sigh. Tony cocked his head at Steve and narrowed his eyes, making him slightly uncomfortable.

"I said I'm fine."

"I believe him. " Tony said simply.

"Thank you." Steve said and Bruce rubbed a hand over hi face before muttering something to himself and walking away.

"What's got his elastic purple pants in a wad?" Steve shrugged as he sat back down.

"Beats me. So, did Manes give the police any trouble?" Tony sat down in the chair next to him.

"Oh, he threatened them a bit, but nothing too serious."

"Good. Listen, Tony, I need to discuss something with you."

"Yeah? Shoot." Steve sighed.

"Tony, I know it's difficult to be thrown into a team and be forced to have a leader, but I would really appreciate if you would start listening to my orders." Tony groaned and threw his head back in exasperation.

He shook his head while he rubbed a hand over it, and Steve didn't understand why. "Something bad could have happened, Tony." Tony started mumbling incoherent things. "Tony." The brunette looked at him.

"Yeah, well, I _was_ busy. And I'm just not too great at taking orders. That's all there is to it." Anger started seeping through the cracks at Tony's non-caring attitude.

"No, that's not all there is to it!" He grimaced, the pain starting to get to him. "Tony, something really bad could have happened. You were putting lives at stake by doing this. If Manes would have done something to me and gotten away, there's no telling how many innocent people could have died! I just-" He sighed. "I just want you to please listen to me next time."

"Uh, I believe I was keeping a certain Clint Barton alive."

"Yes, I'm very well aware of that, but man, Tony, just think things through next time, okay?" He asked as he stood up and started to walk away, leaving a frustrated Tony who was mumbling and saying things about how it wasn't his fault.

Steve just kept on walking, feeling way too weak as he rounded the corner. He hadn't felt this weak in a long time. Just walking was taking his breath away. He looked down at his hands and noticed they were shaking.

His brow was wet with sweat and suddenly the whole room was spinning while his vision continued to black out for a few seconds at a time. He suddenly ran into a solid figure in front of him.

"Woah, you okay?" Coulson asked. Steve shook his head trying to rid the black spots in front of him.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Just a little tired. I'm on my way to the Tower right now." He said not giving Coulson a chance to say anything to him as he walked away and walked through the door, giving him fresh air. He sighed as he remembered they were out over the ocean.

"Hey." A voice from behind him said. He turned around to see a certain redhead standing in front of him.

"Hey, Nat."

"Need a ride?" She asked and he smiled as she nodded her head once to the Quinjet several yards away.

"Yeah,"

"Then come on," She said as she started walking over to the jet. He smiled and hoped he wouldn't fall over on the way there. The ride was pretty silent and Steve honestly couldn't be happier.

Soon they landed on the Tower and he very slowly climbed out and walked in the building, but not before thanking Natasha. He immediately went to his room and collapsed on the bed. His hands were still shaking and he continued to black out for a few seconds every once in a while.

Then it happened, he started shivering form the cold. It kept sending chills through him. But it was like eighty degrees outside, so why was he so cold? He hated the cold with a passion. And that was the nice thing about Summer, he didn't have to worry about it. But here it was, creeping into his bones and making him cold. _So_ cold.

His stomach felt like it was doing flips and he knew what was coming. He barely made it into the bathroom before he started throwing up. He could feel the hot acid rising up in his throat. He gripped the sides of the bowl and threw up until there was nothing left, it felt like.

Suddenly, he noticed red in front of him. That couldn't be a good thing. He had started throwing up blood. He knew that was bad. _Really_ bad. A voice made him jump.

"Captain, should I alert the others of your condition?" J.A.R.V.I.S asked.

"No!" He barked out, higher pitched than he had intended. "Please, don't."

"But Sir-"

"J.A.R.V.I.S." He said, trying to stay strong. "I'm fine. So, please, don't bother the others?"

"Yes, Sir." J.A.R.V.I.S said reluctantly. He couldn't help throwing up again, and again, and again, just spewing out blood. He stayed that way for about an hour before he pushed the lever flushing it when he thought he felt good enough to leave.

When he did he went to his bed and sat down, a hundred times colder than before. He grabbed a blanket off his bed and wrapped himself in it, shivering. He didn't know what was happening to him, he had never felt this way before. It was terrifying.

His chest felt incredibly tight and his breath and heartbeat were shallow. If he didn't know any better he'd say he was having an asthma attack. But unfortunately he did know better, and he knew that something was terribly wrong. He started to stand, well, he tried to stand, but his legs couldn't hold up his weight, so instead he fell to the ground. He was on his knees, panting heavily trying to breathe and stay calm.

"J.A.R.V.I.S?" He croaked out before everything went black and no light came back.

* * *

Tony was ticked. And that was to say the least. He couldn't believe Rogers would go all out on him and blame him for everything. Okay, well, he didn't exactly do that, but still. The mission turned out fine, no one was hurt, the city was saved, so why go all Doctor Phil on him?

He was just barely aware of the conversation Bruce, Natasha, and Clint were having about which one was better, OneRepublic or Imagine Dragons.

"Oh, come on it is so Imagine Dragons!" Clint said to Bruce who obviously didn't agree.

"Nope. Uh-uh." He replied with simply.

"I agree with Clint." Nat said, trying to be in the conversation, but on an adult level.

"Ha!" Clint said and Tony rolled his eyes.

"Sir? Sir?" J.A.R.V.I.S had apparently been saying, finally getting Tony's attention, but yet not completely.

"Yeah, J?" He said as he took a swallow of his coffee, not as good as bourbon, but after a mission, he figured this was best.

"The Captain appears to be in physical distress." This caught everybody's attention, especially Tony's.

"What? What kind of distress?" Tony asked, hoping it was just a mild headache or something, maybe his ribs.

"He appears to be in a hypovelmic state." J.A.R.V.I.S said and Tony almost spit out his coffee. Of everything, that was not what he had expected to hear. It was suddenly so quiet in the room you could a hear a pin drop.

"What do you mean? What caused this? Are you sure, J.A.R.V.I.S?"

"Yes, I am sure, Sir. And it appears he has a stab wound on his torso that has punctured his stomach."

"What? How?"

"You see, Sir, it seems a knife has-"

"Yeah, I get it, J.A.R.V.I.S," Tony said, confused as to how this happened, and suddenly it hit him. It had to have happened on the mission. And the ribs were just a phony distraction away from the fact he had been stabbed.

"Sir, his heart beat is dropping rapidly along with his internal temperature. I recommend immediate medical attention." Suddenly, it was like everything had just sunk in and everyone was on their feet.

"Tasha call S.H.I.E.L.D and tell them what happened and make sure they get a medical Quinjet over here ASAP. Clint, Bruce, come with me." He said right before they both hurried to Steve's room.

They ran the whole way and when they got to it they threw open the door, still being gentle while doing so in case he was behind it. They found him sprawled out on his stomach on the floor. They quickly moved to his side and rolled him on his back.

He was still wearing his Captain America suit and they noticed the once white bandage around his stomach was now soaked completely red with blood. He checked for a pulse, ignoring all of the blood on the floor and coming out of Steve's mouth and slowly streaming down his chin.

He found a faint and uneven flutter and a tiny bit of relief came through him but it was quickly replaced by that same guilt, worry and fear. _If he had been there like Steve had wanted_...He shook his head, dislodging the thought in there. "J.A.R.V.I.S, what's his body heat?"

"86.2 degrees, Sir." Tony swore under his breath as he started doing compressions on Steve's limp body. Tasha ran into the room and immediately went to his side. She gently placed a hand on his cheek.

"Oh, Steve, пожалуйста, не делайте это со мной. (Please, don't do this to me.)"

"How long do we have to wait?" Tony asked, still doing compressions on his chest, ignoring the blood on his hands as he did so. He then tipped Steve's head back and blew a breath of air into him, before covering his mouth and nose so the breath stayed in.

"Five minutes." She said, slowly stroking Steve's hair. "вы все в порядке, ты в порядке , мы получили вас. (You're okay, you're okay, we've got you.)" Her voice started to break as she tried to remain calm. "пожалуйста , вы должны жить , мы нуждаемся в вас. (Please, you have to live , we need you.)"

She whispered before she sighed, but then she heard a faint beat of helicopter blades whirring. She smiled in relief. She couldn't live without him. Whether she liked to admit it or not, she had somehow started developing feelings for the man.

At first she just thought that was because, well, he was Captain America, how could you not? But now she realizes it's not at all like that. And she doesn't understand it, love was a child's game, but yet, somehow she became a part of it.

"Thank God." Bruce mumbled. And before she knew it, people were rushing into the building and had pried Steve away from them. She found that she had tears in her eyes, so before anyone saw, she quickly exited the room and went to her room, and silently cried.

One of the only times she had actually cried, and it worried her what kind of affect the guy had on her.

* * *

They had put Steve on a gurney with an oxygen mask and were dragging him onto the Quinjet when Clint, Tony and Bruce all quickly climbed on. They didn't know where Tasha had gone, but Clint said it was best to just let her be.

They watched as all kinds of doctors and nurses hooked Steve up to different bags of fluids. They all froze as suddenly Steve's eyes slowly fluttered open. They all three simultaneously stood up beside him.

"Where-" He coughed a few times and Tony placed a hand on his bare arm. The doctors had cut off the top of Steve's uniform so they could inspect the wound, and it looked awful. There was an unsteady beep monitoring Steve's heart, but hey, at least it was there.

"You're in a Quinjet on the way to S.H.I.E.L.D hospital." Steve slowly nodded. They stayed like that for a few moments when something terrifying happened, Steve started having a seizure.

His limbs started shaking uncontrollably and they were all three pushed back wondering what the heck was happening. And then suddenly, Tony's stomach dropped as the beeping, turned into one long continuous beep.

"Get the defibrillator!" One of the doctors yelled, and the three of them just stood back frozen and terrified as they watched their best friend flat line. They put something to Steve's chest, and a doctor yelled, 'stat!', right before they shocked him, shaking his whole body roughly.

"Again!" He yelled and they did as told, and there was a pause, a long, long pause to Tony. And suddenly they heard a gasp for air come from Steve and there was yet again, a beeping from the heart monitor. Tony let out a breath he had apparently been holding.

"Oh, thank the Lord." He said and the sunk back down on the bench. He stayed like that for a few minutes when he noticed Steve wake up, so he stood up again. "How you feeling?" He asked, and yeah, it was an incredibly stupid question to ask, considering he had just literally died.

Steve gave him a lazy thumbs up, without opening his yes, but that was good enough for Tony. The guilt was weighing heavily on him as he wondered just what exactly had happened.

He knew what he was going to do to find out, as soon as he could he was going to see if there were any security cameras in that one tunnel they had been fighting in. He was so mad at himself right now, mad that he didn't come and help Steve like he had needed, mad that he hadn't noticed how much pain Steve was in, and mad that he always treated Steve like crap.

And yet Cap was always there for him for some odd reason. He always made sure Tony ate enough, slept enough, and never drank too much. And yet, all Tony ever did was cause problems for the guy.

They landed at the Helicarrier and Steve was once again whisked away. So they waited. They just sat in the hallway and waited. Tony brought up his phone, and brought up J.A.R.V.I.S.

"Hey, J, I want to know if Steve has been doing anything out of normal, or if something's been up with him or anything." He said and the other two looked at him weirdly, but it was replaced with curiosity as they leaned closer and listened to the A.I. start speaking.

"Sir, ever since he's moved in he hasn't slept through a whole night, two, three hours at most every night. The past four nights he hasn't slept at all. When he does, however," J.A.R.V.I.S said and more guilt clenched his gut.

"He seems to have these nightmares. He always wakes up in a cold sweat, sometimes screaming, sometimes crying. He'll start saying he's sorry over and over while he's asleep and after. Every once in a while he'll have a panic attack during the night." Shock rolled over the three as they sat there in silence.

"J.A.R.V.I.S, how could you not tell me this?" Tony asked, anger starting to take control.

"The Captain asked me not, too, Sir." Of course, of course Steve wouldn't want people knowing, or trying to take care of him. He sighed.

"Anything else?"

"Yes, Sir. His eating habits seem to have been changing much lately." Tony raised a brow as he shot a glance a the other and spoke into the phone.

"How so?"

"Well, Sir, he has been eating a considerable amount less lately, and sometimes skips meals altogether."

"Let me guess, asked you not tell me?"

"Yes." Tony grunted. "And also," Once again everything silenced as the three waited to hear what J.A.R.V.I.S was going to say. "After certain nightmares, he seems to roam the house as if he's making sure everything is still there. He goes to the doors of everybody's room, and listens to make sure everyone is still there." Tony's gut clenched as a wave of an indescribable emotion came over him.

He had never thought of how tough Steve really had it. And Tony had no idea he had been having nightmares. Everything J.A.R.V.I.S had just told him, made the guilt overwhelm him. All along Steve had been helping them, especially Tony, and was being completely overlooked. He shook his head as he thanked J.A.R.V.I.S and put his phone back in his pocket. He turned and looked at the other two who also seemed in shock.

"I can't believe this. I can not believe this. How could he not tell anybody about this? I mean, he was having _panic attacks_? Those things are definitely not a light subject. How could we possibly not know that our _leader_ ," He put extra emphasis on that word to make sure he was getting a point across. "Was having all these problems?" He rubbed a hand over his face and mumbled to himself. Then he scoffed as he looked back up at them.

"Heck, we didn't even know he had been stabbed! _Stabbed_!" He let out a short laughter, but it contained no humor whatsoever. "And now he's in serious condition, because I failed doing what I was told to do!" He was so mad at himself. He actually just admitted that this was his fault. He sighed as he leaned back.

"I can't-I can't comprehend this. Why? Why would he keep this to himself? This had to be extremely hard on him, and yet..." Clint's voice trailed off as he shook his head. But then his eyes widened just the slightest bit as if he realized something. "We don't know him."

"Huh?" Bruce asked, the first thing he had said almost the whole time. He was too in shock over this whole ordeal.

"We don't know anything about him. Like, what's his favorite food? What's his favorite color?"

"Probably red, white and blue." Tony mumbled, interrupting Clint's little ramble.

"Heck, we don't even know when his birthday is! Let alone the other things. How could we possibly not know this stuff? I mean, he's our leader, our friend, he's," He paused slightly, "He's part of our family." He said and everyone went quiet again. Realizing they truly knew nothing about the guy. It was funny, how Tony once thought Captain America was so cool. He would stay up late at night just reading about the Captain. He would marvel over the slightest of details about him. Even if it was the same old boring facts.

But then he ended up hating the guy. He hated him because he took so much attention away from himself. His father loved Captain America, and was so disappointed hen his son didn't turn out like the good ol' Brooklyn boy. His father always claimed he was the most perfect guy he had ever met, and he had put Tony with him in example. Tony never believed one person could be so great. He believed almost everything about him was just simply a myth. A hope that maybe a person could be that way. But Tony knew nobody ever could be, and well, then he actually met the guy.

At first, he had thought the guy was a self-righteous, arrogant, jerk. But buy he couldn't have been anymore wrong. He had soon found out that Captain America truly did live up to his legend, and it had made Tony sick. So, all the hate he had for his father, had come out on Cap. And he felt horrible about now. Because, like Clint had said, he'd become a part of their family, and he was a good addition. He didn't hate the guy, no, not at all, he hated that his father loved Steve so much, and not his own son.

The door next to them opened and a doctor came out wiping his bloodied hands on a towel. Tony ignored that and looked at the doctor straight in the eyes, also ignoring the grim look he held.

"Well?" Bruce asked and the doctor sighed.

"He's in a pretty serious condition. He flat-lined two more times." All of the air felt like it was knocked out of the three of them simultaneously. "But, we were able to bring him back, miraculously. The first time he was only out for a few seconds. The second time," He paused, but decided not to go on, "Well, let's just say it's a miracle he's alive right now. We cleaned out the wound, and fixed his shoulder. We tried putting him on morphine, but that super-serum ate right through it. So, we can't really give him any pain relief. He was out for most of the operation, but unfortunately he was awake for some of it." Tony winced, that couldn't have felt good. "He was stabbed directly into the stomach, and it truly is a miracle he survived. It's very good that you got him here when you did. If you were much later, he surely would have died and not come back."

"But he's okay now, right?" Clint asked, and the doctor bit the inside of his cheek, making Tony's heart deflate even more.

"Well, he's okay, for now. You can see him, just he needs his rest, so don't bother him. He has a concussion and a gash in the side of his head. We stitched up the side of his stomach, but he had already lost a ton of blood. But he should make it through this all right."

"Thanks." Tony said, half-way relieved, and the doctor smiled and started walking away.

"Wait, doctor!" Bruce said and the doctor turned back around to look at him, so Bruce walked over to him with the other two. "You said something about his shoulder?"

"Yes, it was out of it's socket. It appeared as if somebody tried to put it back in it's place, and it was almost there, but it was a little out of line. It should be all right, though." He said before walking off again. Tony shook his head.

"Man, how is it possible he could have hidden all of that?" He asked as they walked over to the door to Cap's room. They slowly creaked it open to reveal Steve laying on the bed with an oxygen mask, and light blue gown on. He was apparently asleep, as they all walked over to him. Bruce placed a hand gently on Steve's arm.

"Poor guy." He whispered, and those two words were just too perfect. He removed his hand and sat down in the plastic white chair beside it. Followed by Tony and Clint.

"Think he'll be okay?" Clint asked Bruce, who just shrugged.

"I honestly don't know, but he is in the best hands possible. So all we can do is just hope and pray." They sat there, every once in a while sending silent prayers up, even Tony, believe it or not, just waiting and wondering how their friend was going to fare. Suddenly, Steve started stirring, and his eyes fluttered open while a small groan escaped his lips. The three immediately stood up and walked over to him.

"Hey, Steve," Clint said, and Steve smiled in response.

"How ya' feeling?" Bruce asked and Steve shrugged.

"Good." He said, his voice hoarse and raspy. Tony shook his head at his friend, not being able to believe his friend's strength.

"Guys, can I speak with him, alone, for a minute?" Tony asked, nervously because he dreaded what he was about to say. Bruce and Clint silently nodded, before leaving.

And as soon as the door closed, leaving just him and Steve in the room, Tony sighed and sat down in the chair next to his bed. Steve, as well as he could, looked over at Tony, and Tony could see the pain very visibly in his eyes. He looked like he was past death and on his way up the stairs. "

Listen, Steve, I um, I'm, I'm sorry. I should have- I should have listened to you and come help you." He groaned and rubbed his hand over his face. "I should have come and helped you, then you wouldn't be here. I just, I am so incredibly guilty, I hope you can forgive me. I doubt you ever could, because, well, look what happened because of it. Sure, it was partially because you didn't tell anybody, but it wouldn't have happened in the first place if it weren't for-" Tony rambled on until a hand landed on his arm, stopping him as he looked up at Steve who was smiling at him.

"Tony," He choked out and started coughing a few times, making Tony start to get up to get Bruce but was stopped by Steve again. "No. I-I'm fine. Just-" HE coughed again, "Give me a minute." he choked out, couching several more times, just making Tony sit there uncomfortably.

"Tony," He finally started saying, "stop. Okay? Just, stop. You-" He weakly gestured to Tony and then himself. "You didn't cause this. This is completely my fault. I'm the one who failed to tell anyone, and who failed to fight Manes. It's just, he was also in a war, and I had some sympathy for him, I guess." He shrugged, faltering a bit while doing so.

"He just, he said something that-" Tony saw a flash of a dark emotion, something he had never seen before in his Captain, but it was quickly replaced by that same stoic expression. "I don't know. I just messed up, okay?" He said, looking away from Tony and removing his hand when it started trembling.

"What do you mean he said something?"

"Tony, I don't know why I said that, I'm just tired, I guess. And listen, there's absolutely no reason for me to forgive you, okay? Don't let yourself be bothered by something like that. It was completely my fault." Tony slowly nodded, somehow feeling a bit better, but yet not completely better.

"Okay. I'll let you get some rest." Steve nodded back, before closing his eyes, and for some reason, he looked like he was in a lot more pain than before. But not really physical pain, more like, he wasn't sure,, but maybe emotional pain? He shook his head as he walked over to the door, casting a glance at the Super Soldier once, before leaving. Captain America sure was a mystery to the world.

* * *

 _Steve felt the glass vase slip through his small fingers, and fear tore at his heart as it hit the ground and shattered into a thousand pieces. The vase that his father had gotten because it was a one of a kind that cost a ton of money, but for some reason it was worth it to his father. He gasped as the glass shards scratched and scraped his bare feet._

 _"No, no, no, no, no, no, no..." The just barely seven year old said as he felt hot tears start forming in his eyes. All he had wanted was to clean it so he could surprise his father. He could see the blood coming from his feet as he frantically tried to clean up the shards before his father noticed, because if he did...Steve shook his head trying not to think like that._

 _Suddenly, he gasped as he heard heavy unsteady footsteps pounding down the hallway leading up to the living room. That could only mean one thing, his father was drunk again. He continued trying to clean up the pieces, but it was no use. Looks like he wouldn't be playing with Bucky in the morning after all. Suddenly, the door swung open, causing Steve to jump. He could smell the beer stench coming off of him as the anger grew instantly in his father's eyes._

 _"Father, I-I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to, I didn't mean to." He repeated with a trembling voice. He started shaking in fear. "Please, plea,e I'm sorry!" he said as the tears started streaming down his cheeks. His father shook his head, the anger seeping through and entering his eyes._

 _"What did you think you were doing!? You idiotic fool!" His father took two swift steps closing the space in between them, and grabbed Steve by his shirt's collar and picked him up with brute force. Steve just went limp, still shaking._

 _"_ _You are nothing but a weak, worthless, stupid little idiot! I wish you were never born! Why were you my son!? You're nothing but a problem causing, weak, stupid, little brat who has been wasting my time since you were born! You'll never amount to anything!" He shouted, and here came the part Steve dreaded._

 _His father threw him down and dragged him over to the couch where his father sat down and laid him across his lap, ignoring Steve's pleads and cries._

 _"Maybe this will teach you to not mess with my stuff!" He said before he released all of his pent up anger and hatred for Steve out. Pain erupted throughout Steve and he yelled for help, but none came. He tried to think of anything else. Something funny, something that made him happy. So he tried to think of all of the times he and Bucky snuck into the theatre to see the picture show because they were too poor to buy tickets._

 _And he thought of the time Bucky gave him half of his own Christmas presents because Steve's parents were too poor. But that memory only made it worse, because his father had found out and had let Steve have it just because he had reluctantly accepted the gifts._

 _No matter what he thought of, none of it took away the pain form his father's pounding. He screamed again, but nothing happened, his father just told hi to shut up. So, he prayed. He prayed for it all to stop, because he hoped somewhere up there someone was listening to his pleads._

* * *

Steve groaned and tossed and turned as another memory and nightmare returned. Sweat wetted his forehead as he groaned. He felt something pushing his shoulder, but it wasn't enough to pull him out of his horrible dream.

"Steve? Steve? Steve, wake up. Come on, wake up!" Someone said, and suddenly with another shove to the shoulder, Steve jerked awake, panting and sweating. He just stared ahead, shaking, and vaguely aware of Tony standing next to him with a worried expression on his face. "Steve, are you okay? It was just a nightmare. Okay? Just a nightmare." Steve finally was able to bring his eyes up to the older man and connect their gazes. He slowly nodded, before laying back down.

"Th-thanks, Tony." He said, realizing that it was only a nightmare, and nothing other than an old memory.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Tony asked, and if Steve didn't know any better, he'd say that there was a hint of concern layered in his voice. He slowly shook his head, swallowing. "Okay."Steve slowly closed his eyes, trying to erase the memory of his father lashing out on him. It had almost been a daily occurrence. He remembered how the day after that whole 'incident', he had received a broken arm, several bruised bones, and a fractured rib.

He had been so weak, just the slightest hit had bruised or fractured something. His father had told the teacher at school Steve had been playing in a tree out in the park, when he had fallen out receiving those injuries. He took in a shaky breath, trying to rid himself of all the memories that came flooding in.

He couldn't help but remember the time his father had beat his mom because of something Steve had done. And Steve still wondered to this day if he had only been stronger, and stood up for his mom and himself, could he have been able to spare them from all the scars and pain? He sighed as he tried to fall back asleep.

A hand landed on his shoulder, and he jerked out of reflex, but un-tensed when he realized it was just Tony. He opened his eyes to see concerned eyes looking down at him. "Get some sleep. I'll be here." Tony said and Steve slowly smiled, even though it was pained at the corners, but hey, it was a smile. He nodded before closing his eyes again, and trying to stop all of the memories and get some rest.

* * *

Tony inwardly sighed as he moved back down to his chair. He had just been sitting there when Steve had started jerking and saying things like, 'I'm sorry! Please. Don't! I'm sorry!'. And when he had woken up, after several tries, the look in his Steve's eyes, had knocked something loose in Tony.

He had looked so frightened, and helpless. He didn't look like the always brave and stoic Captain they were used to, no, he looked so vulnerable, and scared. He had hoped that maybe Steve would talk about it, but he knew he wouldn't.

Same reason Tony didn't like to talk about his. Afraid of what the person might say in response. Steve looked so young, in that moment, he looked so vulnerable, and so sad. He truly looked his age. He truly looked like he was just a 22 year old.

Tony sighed while quietly tapping his fingers on the arm of the chair he was in. He didn't know what to do.

He wanted to go and find that surveillance to see just what exactly had happened during that fight between Cap and Manes. But he couldn't leave Steve, not now, especially not now.

He smiled slightly as he looked over at Steve, he was just a kid, and yet he was thrown into this messed up, cruel new century and forced to fight for people who hadn't even heard of Captain America.

It was just wrong.

It was just wrong for Steve to be treated this way. Tony only wondered what he was dreaming about. What could be so bad that would shake up their ever so strong Captain? He sighed as he shifted, this was going to be an interesting week.

* * *

Steve woke up to find a familiar red head sitting next to his bed on her cell phone. His third day. His third day in this hospital without hardly any movement whatsoever. Apparently, Nat must have noticed his slight movement, because she looked up at him and smiled while putting the phone down. She leaned ahead, elbows balancing her chin while sitting on her knees.

"How ya' feeling?" He shrugged.

"I'm fine." He said, trying to ignore every fiber in his body that was yelling that he was not fine.

"Liar." She said as she tilted her head to the side and narrowed her gaze. He couldn't help but smile, he hated to admit it, but he loved the way she did that.

"Maybe," he said with a shrug, and the corners of her mouth twitched and finally they were brought up into a smile.

"You gave me quite a scare there." She said, voice barely above a whisper, and he could see some weird emotion in her eyes, before she masked it with her normal 'spy' expression.

"Sorry. Didn't mean to." he said, and for a long moment, their gazes connected, before they both looked away. He shook his head and she awkwardly cleared his throat. "So," he said, hoping to rid the uncomfortable vibe in the air. "What are the others up to?" She shrugged with one shoulder and went back to her phone that was sitting on the table next to her.

"Bruce is in the lab, trying to cook up some thing that will be able to actually take the pain away for you." Steve smiled at his friend's kindness, "Clint and Tony are off looking for something, not sure what. I just know that Tony drug Clint along. And well, Thor's in Asgard. And I'm here."

"Thanks for that." She shrugged.

"I didn't want you to wake up alone." She said without looking up. He smiled before laying back and closing his eyes, quietly sighing. "So, how long do you have to be cooped up in this?"

"The doctor said about a week left here, and then I can finish the net couple recuperating at home." He said with a smile. Home. Finally, he'd be able to get out of this hospital. Man, he hated hospitals with a passion. They always reminded him of his youth; getting sick and going there, _his_ _dad's pounding_...He swallowed and shook his head, ridding that thought from his mind.

"That'll be nice." He nodded, still fighting the memories threatening to crash into him.

"Yeah. Yeah, it will be." He said, and then Natasha reached beside her seat and pulled up a familiar backpack. "What's that doing here?" He asked as he weakly pointed towards it.

"Your backpack. I thought there might be something in it you wanted." He smiled as she set it on his bed.

"Yeah, thanks, Nat." He said as he slowly pulled it up to his side as she stood up and helped him. She shrugged with a small smile.

"Don't mention it. I also hate hospitals, so anything to pass the time when you're stuck in one of those stupid beds, is worth having." Her text tone went off, and she went to her phone and opened it. She swore under her breath in Russian.

"What?" He asked as he saw another unreadable emotion cross her features.

"Oh, it's just a mission alert, don't worry about it." She said with a tight smile, which was way too fake.

"Nat, what is it? What's the mission?"

"It's nothing."

"Nat-"

"Don't worry about it, Steve." She said firmly, "Listen, I need to be going, so, just see if you can pass the time." She said as she headed to the door, "Feel better!" She said before she opened the door and practically ran out, leaving Steve wondering what the heck the mission was. He sighed in frustration as he started digging through his bag looking for it. Why wouldn't she tell him?

His hand searched blindly in the bag, because it was too far down for him to look in it without hurting himself even more. Then he felt it, he felt the new leather as he got a hold on the small item and pulled it out; his new journal. He smiled as he moved it around in his hands and admired the new brown leather.

He had decided to get a new journal, because of this new world. He feared his old one couldn't keep up with the 'times'. So, he got this one because he liked the brown leather which had a new yet older look to it. He opened it and grabbed a pencil from his bag's zippered pocket.

This was his first time writing in it. How was he supposed to start it? He tapped the pencil on his leg and bit his lip, thinking of ways to start it, when suddenly an idea popped in his head. He started jotting down words, still keeping the neatness in tact for the words. After a while of writing, trying to get caught up, he decided to sketch some pictures to describe the days he had just written about.

This task alone took him a while, but he didn't think it had been a long time. That was, until Tony and Bruce stumbled through the door, Bruce escorting Tony to a chair, and Tony still in his Iron Man suit, looking like a crap. As soon as Tony was sitting down, Bruce sighed and shook his head.

"Whoa, what happened to you?"

"Rough mission." Bruce answered back with. Well, maybe Tony, the biggest blabbermouth in the world, would tell him. "Stay here." Bruce commanded, before walking out of the room.

"Man, what happened?" Steve said as he tried to sit up, but failing immediately because of the pain.

"What he said." Steve rose a brow.

"That's all you're gonna' say? You never say something like that." Steve said with a chuckle. Tony just shrugged. "Come on, what was the mission about?" Steve Rogers wasn't a pushy person, but he wanted to know so desperately what his team had been up to. "You can tell me, Tony." Tony sighed, as if he was debating on telling him or not telling him.

"It was a rough mission."

""Tony, really? Why was it so rough?" Tony groaned and put his head back so it connected with the wall. His helmet had been off when he'd stumbled in.

"It was a difficult mission; especially when we didn't have our leader. Which was probably a good thing, considering-" Tony stopped his little beginning of a ramble abruptly.

"What do you mean, 'considering'?" Tony sighed and looked to the door, before shifting his gaze to Steve and taking on a pretty serious tone.

"Manes escaped prison. And he swore he's going to get revenge on you when he found out you had lived from his brutal attack."

"Oh..." Was all Steve could get out. He couldn't believe it. "How had he gotten out of prison?"

"Well, apparently, this Manes character, has some sort of gang of ex-soldiers who are trying to seek revenge on different people, and your names on the list by the way, and they busted him out, showed no mercy to the prison guards either. Looks like the 'kill and ask questions later' strategy is Manes favorite." Anger boiled through Steve, he hated anybody who just killed for the sake of it. Apparently, that was showing, because Tony quickly stood up.

"Whoa, whoa, easy there, Spangles. I don't think S.H.I.E.L.D would take it to kindly if you broke this machine." Tony pointed to the machine that had tubes coming out of it and going into Steve's arm, which he had subconsciously been trying to break free.

"Sorry," Steve mumbled, while laying back down. "How's everyone else?" Tony tensed and Steve knew that meant only one thing; someone was hurt.

"Well..."

"Tony." Steve said in the I'm-still-your-Leader-you-listen-to-me-or-else tone of voice.

"Clint has a concussion from being thrown into a cement wall, and Tasha was shot in the leg." Steve's jaw dropped.

"What? How did they possibly get a hit on them?"

"Well, they cornered Hawkeye, and trapped Tasha. They obviously wanted them alive because they could have easily of killed them. They tried cornering me, but they didn't understand my suit was bulletproof." Steve chuckled, imagining a bunch of Vietnam soldiers trying to shoot Iron Man.

"Are they all right, though?"

"Yeah, they're just cleaning up the gun wound, and they put both of them on some drug to knock them out, because they both hate being in hospitals." Steve huffed. He sure knew that feeling.

"That's good. They're some of the most stubborn people I've ever met." Tony rolled his eyes and grunted.

"Aside from you." he said and Steve looked at him with a shrug and smile.

"Been told that's my biggest flaw." Tony crossed his arm and raised a brow.

"You believe that?"

"No." Tony chuckled. "It's not my worst flaw, it's one of my best qualities."

"Yeah. So, what you been up to?" Steve's hand subconsciously went to his bag, as if he was protecting it.

"Oh, not much. I've been sketching some."

"Sounds fun." Tony said, and then his phone's text message went off. He checked the text, and a frown took it's place on his face.

"What is it?"

"Oh, it's nothing. Don't worry about it." Steve's heard that too many times toady. "Well, they're gonna' want me to do some debriefing for them since I'm the only conscious one right now. So, see ya' later, Cap." Tony saluted him before leaving. Steve chuckled and decided to think about this Manes character. What did he want with him? And just what was he going to do to get his way?

Tony sighed as he closed the door. The text he had just received was a video message from Manes. He walked over to where Bruce was standing in the hallway. He tapped his shoulder from behind him.

"Hey, Bruce."

"Ah!" Bruce jumped back, and placed a hand over his heart. "Tony, don't do that." he said, words full of anger.

"Sorry," he said, not really caring. "I just got a message from Manes." Bruce's eyebrows furrowed together as he frowned.

"What kind of message?"

"Video. Here, follow me." He said before he led them into an empty hospital room. He hacked into the TV and somehow got the message up in like a minute.

"Why couldn't we just watch it on your phone?"

"Better acoustics." He said nonchalantly. The video started playing and Manes popped up on the screen wearing a camouflage war uniform. behind him there were all guards lined up guarding something. They consisted of young, old, and some guys around Bruce's and Tony's age.

"Why, hello there, Tony!" He said and they both immediately tensed up, this guy wasn't a light topic. "I see that your little 'mission' to keep me from getting away turned bad." He said with an evil chuckle.

"So sorry about what happened to Clint and Natasha. Oh well, they'll live. I just thought It'd let you know that I might have accidentally encrypted a virus into your phone so that when you opened this message not only will I have known just when you did, I will also have a little surprise coming for your tech in, oh, about a week." He said with a smirk. Bruce looked at Tony with his jaw dropped. "Oopsie."

"He can't do that, can he?" Tony quickly started to go through his phone, checking his data bases, and different things, to find, indeed, a virus in all of his tech. He tried to stop it and block it even, but it wasn't working.

"Come on," He muttered. He had paused the video so he could see if he could quickly counteract the virus, but nothing worked.

"So Manes is tech-savvy?" Bruce asked, still astonished.

"Apparently. Unless," He paused. "Unless, he has someone working for him." Tony sighed, it was useless. He couldn't block the virus. He hesitantly put the video back up, watching in amazement and complete disgust.

"Now that that is installed, the rest of my plan will soon be taking it's place. I can't reveal any of it to you, unfortunately, but I can tell her that you better be saying your goodbyes to your beloved Captain. For he is not long for this world. I will have my revenge. Bye bye now." He said, before the screen went black. Tony groaned in extreme frustration.

"What the hell is happening!?" He yelled. "What are we gonna' do? I can not believe that that stupid fool hacked into my stuff and planted a virus in it! Nobody's been able to do that! Ever! And what is he talking about with this so-called plan? And what's does he mean by 'goodbyes'?" he asked, doing air-quotes with his fingers. "We are not about to let our Captain be killed by some egotistical maniac!" He groaned and rubbed his hands over his face.

"Tony, calm down," Bruce said, placing a hand on his shoulder, which Tony just shrugged off.

"How am I supposed to calm down!?" He yelled, and then sighed as he sat down in one of the white chairs behind him. "I just-" He paused, "I don't want anything else happening to the guy. It's already my fault he's in this freakin' hospital, all because I didn't follow orders."

"Tony, don't blame yourself." Tony scoffed at Bruce's command.

"How can I not? Watch this." Tony says as he uploads the video of Steve and Manes fighting. They silently watch as Steve and Manes face off, and when Manes pops Steve's shoulder out of it's socket, Tony can't help but grimace.

They continued to watch when he got stabbed and when he knocked Manes out. Tony had already seen this like a dozen times, it was like watching a train wreck, he just couldn't bring himself to look away.

They watched as Steve slowly brought himself up and breathlessly tried slamming his shoulder back into place. He then fell to the ground, in obvious pain, so how the heck did he manage to hide it so well? The video ended and Tony couldn't even look at Bruce.

"Tony, still, you can't blame yourself for this." Bruce said it like it was the simplest thing in the world.

"How? How do I not blame myself for this?" Bruce sighed and rubbed the back of his neck.

"Think of Steve." Tony pulled a face at his suggestion. What did that even mean? Thinking of him was the whole reason Tony was bothered. "I mean, think about it; he wouldn't want you blaming yourself for this. He wouldn't be able to stand to see you acting this way, Tony." Steve's words replayed in Tony's mind, _'_ _You didn't cause this. This is completely my fault. I'm the one who failed to tell anyone, and who failed to fight Manes.'_ Momentary relief flooded Tony, but was replaced with curiosity as he remembered Steve mentioning something that Manes had said to him.

"Ugh, Bruce, why do you have to make so much sense?" Tony asked in total exasperation. The man just simply shrugged.

"I am the smartest person in the world." Tony put up a finger in protest.

"Uh, no. I believe you are mistaken, Doctor." Bruce chuckled. "I am the smartest man in the world." He said as he pointed to himself and they both stood up and headed to the door, when Bruce patted him on the back.

"Sure thing, Genius."

* * *

"Yeah, and she nearly drove me off a cliff for that comment!" Clint said as the Avengers, minus Steve and Thor, walked into the hospital room that Captain America was currently residing in. They all laughed, except Tasha, considering the comment was directed to her. They all immediately quieted when they saw that Steve was asleep. He had fallen asleep while he had apparently been writing in his Journal. "I didn't know Cap had a Journal,"

"That is _so_ girly." Tony said, earning a punch in the side of his gut from Tasha and a chuckle from Bruce and Clint. "Ow!"

"Is not." She said with anger and a hint of a smirk. Tony carefully unlaced the book from their Captain's fingers. "Tony! What are you doing?" Natasha whispered, but Tony ignored her.

"Tony, what _are_ you doing?" Bruce asked as Tony started lifting it up to read it. "That's sorta' private."

"Oh, come on, you're the one who told me we know nothing about our Captain. I'm just seeing if I can find something out about him. And to see if maybe I can find out if he has a secret girlfriend or something." Tony said and he swore he saw a hint of a blush come from the ice-cold assassin as she looked at him in disbelief.

"Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going out to the hallway to read this; if you want you can join me, but that _is_ up to you." Tony said before exiting the room. He silently counted to five, before the door opened, revealing three curious Avengers. "Right on time," Tony said, once again ignoring the looks from the three. "Shall we find out some stuff about our Leader?" He asked before opening it up so they could all read it.

 _'Dear Journal, um, wow, how do I start this? I mean, I got this new Journal because of this new-century, but I guess I never gave much thought of the beginning. Maybe I should start with some biographies of the people I know. Starting with Bruce; Yes, it's true, the guy has severe anger issues. But it's not his fault that he was burdened with that stuff, he didn't ask to become Hulk. But he's one of the nicest, kindest guy I've ever met._

 _So, imagine if this stuff would have landed in some kind of jerk's hands, where all they cared about was their self? Disaster. Just pure and plain disaster. So really it's a miracle that it happened to him, because I can't think of any other guy who would be able to carry that burden. Bruce out stands the Hulk, he's such an amazing guy, no matter who realizes it, or who doesn't.'_

Tony looked over at Bruce who was smiling ever so slightly, before looking back down at the page. With every page, it looked like Steve had drawn a portrait of the person he wrote about, for Bruce's it was Bruce surrounded by equipment and wearing his lab coat with a huge smile on his face and he was obviously in a lab. Underneath him it wrote in small cursive letters, 'True Environment'.

 _'Okay, now, Clint;'_

Clint immediately tensed up, amusing Tony.

 _'Clint's also a great guy, he's kind and considerate and one of the most thoughtful guys you'll ever meet. He'd go out of his way to protect you and keep you safe. And I know that if he saw this, he'd deny it before you even finished reading it.'_

Clint chuckled and nodded his head.

 _'But trust me, all of this is true no matter what he says. I know that when I first met him, his cold, rough exterior had sort of intimidated me, but then I saw the great, likable guy underneath that stoic mask. And, now how about I do Tony's?'_

Immediately, Tony was the one to tense up, earning an amused look from Clint. Clint's picture had been of Clint in the living room of the Tower with his bow in one hand and a drink in the other. He looked like he was laughing and having a good time. Underneath him it wrote, 'Behind The Stoic Mask'.

 _'Ah, where do I begin? Tony is, well, a Genius, Billionaire, Playboy, Philanthropist.'_

Everyone chuckled this time.

 _'But to me there's more to that. There's a lot hidden underneath those words, there are a lot of untold stories. Now, he would never tell me more than that, but I have learned a few things. Tony Stark comes across as a rude, know-it-all jerk, who just wants his way. But believe me, that's not the case at all._

 _He has that mask to hide what's underneath, he's just a sensitive, kind, considerate, soul who really is sort of underestimated. In the time I've grown to know him, I've learned that he had a rough childhood, and I can certainly relate to that, it was a little different than the one I had, but it was still similar._

 _And I guess I kind of related to him in a way. Anyway, he's a great guy, just give him a chance. Oh, and I know that he will also deny this the moment he see's it. Oh, and even though he doesn't technically have a heart, that doesn't stop him from being a great guy.'_

Tony looked down, feeling everyone's eyes on him. He wasn't sure what to say, he had thought for sure Steve was going to reveal what a jerk Tony really was, not reveal the reason why he acted like such a jerk. Suddenly, a hand patted his back.

"I wonder what he meant by a similar childhood?" Bruce asked as he removed his hand from Tony's shoulder and changed the subject. Clint shrugged.

"I don't know, maybe if we keep reading we'll find out." He said and then they all went back to reading. Tony's picture had been of him wearing a Metallica shirt and blue jeans while working on something in the lab, but this one was a real picture, it wasn't drawn or anything, and it was of him building an instrument for S.H.I.E.L.D that helps them protect the exterior of the Helicarrier from attacks. Underneath Steve wrote, 'True State.'

Tony smiled as he remembered that day, Steve had come into the lab to ask a simple question, little did Tony know that was just an excuse for him to snap a picture from his phone. Steve had laughed and laughed at Tony's reaction, because Tony was the one that had taught Steve how to take pictures from his phone in the first place.

 _'Next up, Thor. Okay, I don't know how to even start this one. Well, he's a god apparently, which is a little difficult for me to understand. Personally, I believe he is basically just like the rest of us. I believe that he is able to feel just like us, able to hurt physically and emotionally just like us, able to understand the trials of this life just like us. I believe we should treat him like one of us, no more no less._

 _Because the guy really is just normal like us, and I know how much he strives on us treating hi that way. He just wants to be normal and fit in. He's such an amazing guy, he doesn't deserve to be treated poorly. He is a warrior and a fighter. He seems to somehow understand me a little better than others, it's difficult to explain. But he is really a kind spirit.'_

"If only Thor was here to see this." Tasha said with a small smile.

 _'Okay, got that one done. Now comes the hardest one yet; Tasha.'_

Tony noticed Nat go still, and decided not to chuckle, because he would regret it. And for Thor's picture, it was of him in civilian clothes with his hammer in hand and stoic and brave look on his face, as if he was prepared for battle. Under it read, 'The New Normal', which Tony thought was perfect for him.

 _'Wow. I don't know what to say, so I guess I'll just start with how great she really is, which she too would deny this if she saw it. I know that she is not proud of her past and wishes she never would have been in the Red Room. And that for some reason she thinks that it turned her into some sort of monster. But that is so not the case, she doesn't understand that she's only a monster if she allows it. She is one of the gentlest most caring girls I've ever met. She has the heart of a lamb and the fierceness of a lion._

 _Sure, she is definitely manipulating, but to be honest, that's what makes her strong. She knows that if she came right out and said what she thought about certain things, she would get hurt; and she isn't going to let that happen. So she masks it, she puts on her 'spy' face and claims nothing's wrong. I guess I can relate to her. But she is an amazing person, if only she could see herself as I see her. I've been lucky enough to have these people as my friends, and I am unbelievably grateful for them.'_

Tony could see the red that tinged her cheeks just as plain as day, but once again, said nothing about it. For her picture, it was of her out on the battlefield, brave and strong, but yet she had a hint of a smile, and that smile held so much emotion, it was unbelievable he was able to capture that. It had the gentleness and kindness he had written about. They continued reading the biographies about all sorts of people, Nick Fury, Coulson, Maria Hill, Sharon Carter and even some other S.H.I.E.L.D agents Tony had barely heard of.

 _'Well, that's most everybody. I did Bucky (AKA Winter Soldier), Sam, Howard, Peggy, Erskine, and well, I guess I should do my parents. My mother was a hard-working woman, she had to be to keep us alive. Especially with me always in the hospital. I remember how she always used to sing while she worked, she said, 'it simply brings a joy to my life'. I never could bring myself to sing or whistle, it just didn't bring me any joy I guess._

 _And the only songs I knew were the ones my mom hummed or the ones I would sometimes hear drifting down from the Broadway Theatre. We only lived about 12 miles away, so me and Bucky would sneak out some nights and go outside of the building to just listen to it and enjoy each other's company. I know I failed my mother, desperately, and that I'll never make it up to her._

 _And my father, I don't really have much to say about him. I guess I should write down a few things, maybe if I do it'll sort of help with all the memories. I don't like the idea of writing this stuff down, but if it'd make a difference, maybe it would be best._

 _I was walking down the sidewalk somewhere around 5 o' clock in the evening, when I heard a baby bird squawking. I just ignored it, figuring it was just scolding me, but then I saw it on the ground, right below it's nest, and well, I couldn't leave it when it had fallen out._

 _So I went over and carefully cradled it in my hands, before trying to climb the tree; I really was no good at it, because of how small and weak I was. But somehow I managed to get to the nest and put the baby bird in there with it's other two siblings. And that's when my grip weakened on the tree branch, and my foot slipped._

 _I fell about ten feet to the ground, but it didn't bother me because I had done it to rescue the bird. And then I noticed that my pants were ripped around the knee, badly. And they were my good clothes because I was on my way home after the funeral of a family's close friend._

 _My parents had walked home before me, so I went alone. When I did get home, I came in the door, only to see my father sitting at the table. I immediately shrunk to about one inch when my father saw me. He started yelling at me about how dirty and messed up my clothes were and how much they had cost him._

 _I don't remember what all he had shouted at me, just something along the lines of wishing I was never born and how much trouble I caused him and how much of a burden I was. He also said something about how he should just leave us._

 _I remember him grabbing my arm and starting to drag me away when my mom begged him to stop, he shoved her to the ground and drug me out to the woodshed ignoring my cries the whole time. I guess I must have blacked out or something because I don't remember anything from that, just that I had woken up afterwards on my bed, (AKA the couch in our living room) with a few broken ribs._

 _My mom had said that my dad hadn't meant anything he'd said, and that he was just upset from the funeral, but I knew; I knew what my father thought of me, and how I was just weak and worthless. I guess it was true. I just thought that if I was getting a Journal, I should let you know what that was like.'_

The picture for that page showed a small, weak child in dirty clothes, surrounded by a bunch of tall human shaped shadows, and the fear in his eyes was so clear, it was almost haunting. Tony sighed as he closed the book, seeing as how the was the last he had written. He looked up at the others and they looked like they had just seen a ghost. Clint sat down in the chair behind him, eyes wide with horror and disgust.

"I can't believe he never told us he was abused." Bruce said, voice barely above a whisper.

"This makes me sick," Tasha mumbled.

"This makes him like a bajillion times stronger than we already thought he was, if that's even possible," Clint said, voice layered with shock, disgust, and anger.

"This explains why he never talked about his childhood to us." Tony said as he waved the book in his hand around.

"Why wouldn't he tell us?" Clint asked from the chair.

"I guess he felt ashamed. Like it had been his fault." Bruce explained calmly, but everyone could see the rise of emotions in his eyes.

"But it wasn't. There was absolutely nothing he could have done," Tony said back to him.

"Maybe that's why he feels ashamed." Bruce said and Tony sighed.

"I'm going to put this back before he wakes up," Tony said before he carefully opened the door and walked over to Cap where he gently put the book back under his fingers without waking him up, which was incredible considering what a light sleeper he was. He looked down at Steve in a new way, he was just a kid from Brooklyn who got thrown into this messed up new-century. Steve's lips were creased in the corner as if he was in pain, but now that Tony thought about it, he always looked like that. Tony sighed with a sad smile. "Sleep tight, Soldier."

* * *

Natasha opened the door to Steve's room and immediately chuckled at the sight of him already dressed and on his crutches. "I take it you're ready?" She asked with a smile, because he had just found out that he was released from the hospital a few minutes ago.

"More than ready." He said with a smile filled with relief. The rest of the afternoon was spent with them on their way to the Tower, and he hardly had said a word. And if she hadn't started the little conversations, he probably wouldn't have said anything at all. Every time she saw him she couldn't help but think about what was said in his Journal; what he said about her, which how the heck did he know her so well, and she knew nothing about him?

And about his past. She wanted to bring it up, but didn't know when. She landed the helicopter on the landing pad on the Tower and helped Steve gingerly climb out of the helicopter. "Thanks." He said.

She tried to help him walk to the door, but he stopped her. "Don't worry, I'm fine." He said with that genuine smile, so she backed off and watched as he struggled with getting to the door, but eventually made it. She opened the door and they both got on the elevator, when suddenly Steve spoke up. "Thanks, Nat, for everything." he said, and she smiled before turning back to her phone and leaning against the wall.

Tony had shown her the video Manes had sent, and she was now constantly looking over her shoulder, well, she did that anyway, but now it was more serious. She hid a smile as she looked over at him; he was half-way leaning on his crutches so that he could mostly rest up against the wall with his eyes closed and head tilted back.

She went back to her phone, searching for any information on this Manes character; and she found nothing. Not a thing. She internally groaned and stuffed her phone into her pocket. The elevator dinged and she waited for Steve to hobble out, before following. They walked out into the living room to see three Avengers sitting in the living room watching a football game. They paused it and turned around.

"Hey, Steve!' Clint said as they all stood up and walked over to them. "You're just in time to watch a ping-pong game that I am obviously going to win." He said with a smug look on his face. Tony quickly stepped up and interfered.

"Um, yeah, no." He said with a glare directed to Clint. "I'm pretty sure I will win."

"Ha! You wouldn't know how even if J.A.R.V.I.S helped you with the trajectory and other boring stuff."

"Hey, you know that's a good idea. Hey, J.A.R.V.I.S!" Tony called, cupping his hands around his mouth for his voice to boom out. Clint quickly grabbed Tony's hand and pushed them down with a nervous chuckle.

"That's cheating."

"No, it's fair play when you're playing with a professional Archer. Besides, you suggested it." Steve chuckled, missing those two's banter.

"You know what? Go ahead, le's see what happens." Clint challenged. "You are just a pathetic loser." Steve's breath caught in his throat and he headed over to the couch. He quickly and weakly put the crutches to the side as he sat down, trying to regain his breath. Those were the same words his father had told him on one of his worst beatings. His father had been the most drunk he had ever seen him that night. His hand started trembling as he remembered the horrible day.

* * *

 _Seven year-old Steve stood there, dumbfounded about what had just happened. He had been walking the sidewalk when he had heard a loud shatter. He thought someone might have been in danger, so he quickly went and investigated, only to find a few boys playing baseball. They must have accidentally hit a window with the ball. They saw him and immediately bolted out of there, but not before handing him the wooden bat. The door to the house suddenly burst open to reveal their neighbor Jackson._

 _"Hey!" He yelled and ran over to him. Steve flinched when the guy grabbed his arm. Jackson was the one neighbor who hated Steve. "What do you think you're doing here!?" He yelled and started dragging him down the street to his parent's house. He banged on the door and his extremely drunk father opened it. His angry gaze went down to Steve and up to Jackson again. "You better pay for this."_

 _"What?"_

 _"Your son broke my window! You better pay for it, because I certainly am not!" His father's eyes landed on him and he found it impossible to look up at him, so instead he focused on the neat looking rock on the ground in front of him. "And if I were you I would punish this kid so he doesn't do it again." Steve gasped, realizing what his punishment would be. He looked up, hands trembling, blue eyes full of tears._

 _"But I didn't do it. Honest I didn't."_

 _"Get in here!" His father practically yelled, grabbing Steve's free arm and yanking him towards him. "Don't worry, he'll be punished." He said before slamming the door shut, making Steve jump out of fear._

 _"Father, didn't do it! I swear! I wouldn't do that! Some boys pinned-"_

 _"Oh, will you shut up!?" Steve immediately shrunk down to about one centimeter tall as he tensed, awaiting the first blow. "I wish you were never ever born! I wish you would have never even taken a breath in this world! You'll never be good enough! Just get over yourself already! I will never love you nor will you ever be worth anything to me! You are just a pathetic loser!" He shouted, and then it came. The pain and punches showered him, and instead of yelling or screaming for help, he just shrunk down and took it, barely even flinching. Unshed tears didn't even fall over onto his cheeks either. He knew right then and there, he truly was worthless._

* * *

Steve gasped for air, but none came. That day he had received four broken ribs, a broken arm and ankle. A fractured collarbone and fractured wrist. He grasped the couch as the room felt like it started spinning and closed his eyes. Sweat wetted his brow, and he could feel his fingers started tingling as they went numb. His chest started throbbing and he felt his heart palpating.

"Steve? Steve? Hey, come on, Steve?" A voice asked, sounding a little frantic. He opened his eyes to meet beautiful concerned green eyes in front of him. "Tony, get over here!" Natasha said before putting her hand on his shoulder. "It's okay. You're okay, Steve." Suddenly, Tony, Bruce and Clint were at his side.

"Hey, Steve, look at me? Okay?" Tony asked and he brought his gaze slowly over to Tony, trying to ignore the feeling in him that he was going to die.

"Breathe with me, okay? I'm going to count to ten and I want you to breathe with me. 1," Steve and Tony both took in a breath, Steve's very shaky, "2, 3, 4," He continued breathing with Steve until he hit ten. "Okay, good, concentrate on your breathing. Stay in the present. Now, one more time. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5," He counted to ten again, and Steve felt more relief wash over him when they finished.

He took a deep breath and closed his eyes, leaning his head back on the couch. He heard Tony let out a breath of relief.

"What happened?" Clint asked from beside Steve on the couch.

"Panic attack. He had a panic attack. But you're okay now," Tony said as he patted his shoulder. Steve opened his eyes to look at the four concerned looks from his friends.

"Thanks, Tony." He said, his voice raspy.

"No problem, Steve; those things are scary. I've had one before, and trust me, they're no picnic." Some time during the attack, Nat must've moved to his side on the couch also, because she was currently stroking his hair, calming him down. He tried to ignore the shiver of electricity from her touch.

"What happened?" Clint asked and Steve shook his head, trying to shove the memory back down into the trunk he tried to keep it in.

"I just- a memory, I had a memory, and it-I guess it just bothered me." He said, his voice breaking with different words. He internally scolded himself for his behavior; he was acting so pathetic right now.

"Steve, it's okay to feel this way." Nat said from beside him, still gently stroking his hair, like she had known what he was thinking somehow.

"You want to go rest now, Steve?" Bruce asked and Steve slowly nodded, never looking at any of them. Tony and Clint helped him up off the couch and guided him to his room down the hallway.

Nat and Bruce followed closely behind, only going in front to open the door for him. They helped him sit down on his bed, and he felt even more weak and pathetic than he did before.

"Guys, I'm fine, okay? I'm fine." He said as he carefully shrugged off their help. "Thank you, but I've got this." Tony slowly nodded and they all headed to the door.

"Goodnight, Steve."

"'Night Steve."

"Goodnight." Steve said and immediately after they left, he had fallen asleep.

* * *

Tony sighed as he closed the door to Steve's room, and they all walked to the living room again. "That was weird."

"You're telling me. That was bad." Bruce said as he sat down.

"I wonder what triggered it; did we do something?" Tony asked as he poured himself a glass of whiskey, and headed to the couch.

"I don't know, after what we found out about him today, who knows what's wrong with him?" Clint said and everyone nodded. Tony's phone beeped, so he pulled it out and saw it was a call from Nick Fury.

"Hello?" He asked, not really in the mood to do some joke or tease after what had just happened.

"Tony, we need you guys to come to the Helicarrier, A.S.A.P, understand?" Tony looked at everyone once, before turning his attention back to his phone. There was a hint of urgency in Fury's voice, which was highly uncommon for him.

"Sure, right away." He swiped a finger across the screen and shoved it into his pocket. "Suit up." He said and everyone hurried to their rooms to do as they were told. "J.A.R.V.I.S? Keep an eye on Steve; let me know if anything happens." He said, expecting a response, but not double checking when he received none. He then hurried to get suited and ready himself.

* * *

Steve groaned as the fog around him slowly started dissipating, and then he realized that the heavy layer of smog was in his head. He shook his head, trying to regain consciousness, but only more pain came from his already pounding headache.

His eyes slowly fluttered open, and he slammed them back shut as soon as the bright light in front of him shone in. He hesitantly opened his eyes again to see that he was in some kind of damp and dark room, definitely underground.

He went to move, and that's when he noticed he couldn't. He jerked his hands, but they were tied somehow.

He looked down at his feet to see they were tied too, after failing at moving them. He looked around for any sign of a clue that could help him figure out where he was. He looked up at he door, and saw the one symbol he hated, HYDRA.

And suddenly it came to him; he had just woken up, he had hardly been able to sleep, when he heard a sound behind him, he had tried to quickly turn around to see it, when a hand covered his mouth and took his arms behind him.

Whoever it was had gagged him then, also, but he wasn't going down without a fight. He had headbutted the guy who was holding him, and then spun around and gave the other guy a good roundhouse kick.

And that's when something unbelievably hard, had been slammed into his head, knocking him unconscious. But how had HYDRA gotten him?

Unless, suddenly it all made sense, Manes had to have captured him, but how? How did he get past the Avengers and even J.A.R.V.I.S?

He heard footsteps echo down the hallway, multiple ones, and immediately sat up straight, ignoring the fresh wave of pain washing over him as he did so. The door opened, creaking as it did so, and sure enough, Manes and a couple of his 'soldiers', came in the room.

"Ah, Captain! So good to see you again!" He said with one of those evil smiles.

"Wish I could say the same." Steve said quietly, words full of anger.

"Aw, you're gonna' break my heart." He said with a mock pout. "Guess we'll just have to make me happy again." He said before he took two swift steps toward Steve, making Steve apprehensive while doing so.

Manes then hit Steve across the jaw, and punched him in the stomach hard.

Hard enough to re-fracture those ribs and knock all the wind out of him. He swore he heard a few snaps as he doubled over as well as he could since he was tied up.

He coughed and tried to get some air in his lungs, but every time he did so, his ribs would rub over each other. Manes laughed at seeing Steve struggling for something as little as air.

"All better." He said with a wicked grin, and Steve's hatred was slowly starting to build for this guy.

"What...do...you want with me?" He asked, hesitating on the first couple of words because of difficulty of intake for oxygen.

"Oh, Captain, Captain, Captain." he said as he started walking around Steve's chair, stopping right in front of it and leaning down, so close Steve could feel his horrible breath on his skin. He leaned as far back as he could when he started talking.

Manes eyes narrowed in on him as he spoke. "I just want my revenge. You destroyed my plans, and now you're going to regret it. I'm going to make sure you suffer every last little miserable second of your horrible life." Manes said, words dripping with venom.

"So you're going to torture me?" Steve asked bluntly, acting completely unfazed by Manes comments. Manes started chuckling with a smirk and slowly stood back up.

"Why yes, that's exactly what I'm going to do. I always thought Captain America was famous for his muscles, not his intellect. But sure, why not both? You've got to have brains for any form of plans." Manes said, and Steve glared at him, knowing there was some sort of encrypted code to that sentence.

And sure enough, he found out just what that was. "Speaking of which, how is my little plan going?" Manes snapped his fingers and one of the guards immediately stepped up from his place by the door and handed his leader a tablet.

Manes brought up some video feed from a surveillance camera and lowered the tablet just enough for Steve to have to struggle to see it. It was of his friends frantically searching for something. It looked like they were on a mission or something. And suddenly it hit him like a ton of bricks.

"You set up a fake mission so they'd be out of the Tower, so you could grab me." Steve said, mostly saying what he had thought out loud.

"Yes, indeed. There's that intelligence striking again," He said with a snap of his fingers and that same evil chuckle. He handed the tablet back behind him to one of the guards before facing him again.

"Soon enough they'll realize that bomb is fake, and then they'll come home and see you're gone, and then find out I did it, and epically fail at rescuing you. It'll be so much fun."

"So you're HYRDA?" Steve asked, ignoring everything he had just said.

"Why yes, I am. That's why taking you down will be such a pleasure for me!"

He said, way too happy for Steve's liking. "You've caused so many great problems for HYRDA all these years, and if we finally get rid of you, victory will be ours!

We shall gain control of the White House and soon the United States will be under my control. And after that, the whole world!" He said and his guards started chanting 'hail HYRDA!', and Steve just shook his head at all of this ridiculousness. This Manes guy reminded him all too much of Red Skull.

"So, you really think that'll work?" He asked, interrupting there little chant.

"Why should it not? Enlighten me, Captain."

"Well," Steve started saying, and acted like he was really debating something. "You're no where near being powerful enough to defeat the Avengers, I mean come on, these guys? No way." Steve said, trying to sound like he was overly confident, he was very confident in the Avengers stopping HYDRA's reign, but he was also fairly confident in how much destruction HYRDA could cause. Manes looked back at his guards and shrugged.

"Well, I guess we'll see about that won't we?" He said with that same, stupid evil grin. "If your friends try to save you, they shall be killed. Understand? They will never defeat me. And sure, my guards aren't the greatest, but they will be, we are already working on a Super-Soldier Serum replication, that will be completed in no time. So, let's get started on this, shall we?" He asked, and Steve gritted his teeth as Manes had one of his soldiers pull up a table full of torture devices.

"Let's see how much a Super Soldier can take." Manes said, words full of poison. He tensed as Manes pulled out a device that looked like a stick but had a circular thing on top. He shoved the device against Steve's neck and suddenly electricity exploded all through him.

He clenched his teeth to stop from yelling, he as not about to let Manes have that joy. His whole body shook from the electricity and it took everything in him to stay awake just from this thing, but HYDRA weapons did have about 20 times the strength of any other weapon.

He could feel the electricity coursing through his veins and making his fingers go numb, and he could smell the scent of burning flesh.

Finally, the burning sensation inside of him stopped, and before he could catch his breath a knife was jabbed into his side. He bit down on his tongue so hard it drew blood.

He yelped and doubled over, the knife had tore open the stitches on his side, and it felt like it had re-punctured something. He coughed, and sure enough, there was his answer as flood flowed out of his mouth.

He tried to ignore the agony that breathing caused on his side as he sat up straight again, only to be met with that same stupid shocking device. He clenched his teeth to stifle a yell, which only half worked, because the sound he made was more like a strangled groan.

He tried to focus on breathing, and to focus on any place but here. After what seemed like an eternity, but in reality was only a minute, it stopped, leaving him breathless and panting. Manes grabbed his jaw and held it up with a rough tug. "Had enough yet?"

Steve, who was still trying to breathe, managed to choke out, "I could do this all day," earning a demonic smile from Manes. Manes then grabbed Steve's hair and twisted, while yanking it back over the chair. He grabbed a bucket of water, and ever so slowly poured it out over Steve's face. He choked and coughed, and tried to get free as he felt the water entering his eyes, ears, nose and mouth.

He tried to close his eyes before it hit his face, but he wasn't able to get it in time. The water eventually stopped and Manes threw Steve's head forward, leaving him coughing and sputtering. He tried to take a deep breath, but air refused to enter his lungs. He could feel the water mixed blood trickle out of his mouth as he continued coughing.

Manes then hit him over the side of his jaw, definitely not helping the blood situation. He could also feel the blood pouring out of his side from where Manes had just gripped the knife and yanked it out, Steve groaned from the pain, and not being able to hold in his weakness anymore.

Then Manes grabbed his bare arm, awful day to wear a t-shirt, Steve thought to himself, and then grabbed another, much smaller, knife and started dragging it along Steve's arm. He broke the skin and brought it down even farther, leaving a trail of blood with it. He then plunged it down into his arm, hitting some tendons.

This time it got Steve to shout out in pain, no matter how hard he had tried not to. Manes just laughed maliciously and stood up, throwing the bloodstained knife down on the table next to Steve.

He walked over to some guard and said something, but Steve couldn't hear anything other than the loud ringing in his ears. His vision kept trying to black out, but he refused to let the darkness succumb him.

"Why hello there, Avengers!" Manes said, and Steve tried to jerk his head up to see what he was talking about, but nothing happened. Instead a groan came from just the slight movement. "So great for me to see you again, really, you have no idea how much joy it brings me."

"Where _is_ he?" A low voice growled, and Steve knew that voice, he just couldn't place it.

"Oh, Tony, Tony, Tony, no greeting? No, 'hey, bud, how you doing?' I am thoroughly disappointed." Tony. That's who that was.

"Where is he, Manes?" Another low voice asked, and it took everything in Steve to remember that it was Bruce who had asked that. Why was it suddenly so hard for him to remember?

"I can assure you he is fine. Would you like to see for yourself?" Tony very slowly nodded and Manes shifted the camera to an angle where they could see Steve tied up to a chair that was sitting in a pool of blood. His head was drooped to the side and he looked unconscious.

"Steve! Steve, can you hear me? We're coming to rescue you, just hang tight. We will get to you in time, I promi-" Tony was saying, but immediately stopped when he heard a low murmur come from Steve who was trying to look up at the camera. "Steve?"

"D-don't, Tony. Don't t-try and rescue m-me. I-It's a lost cause, it'd b-be too d-dangerous." Steve slurred and Tony leaned closer to the monitor as if it would bring him closer to Steve. Steve could just barely keep his head from sagging as he looked up at the screen with bloodshot and clouded eyes.

"Steve, we're not going to leave you there."

"T-tony-" Steve started saying but was cut off by Tony.

"No, Steve, we are _not_ going to leave you there."

"Teams don't leave each other." Clint said from beside Tony, and Nat and Bruce were just standing there, too shook up at the sight of him like that to say anything.

Suddenly, slow and loud clapping sounded in the background as Manes came back into sight, he placed a hand over his heart.

"Beautiful, just beautiful. Touching, really." He said, and just received death glares from all of the Avengers. "But I'm afraid your attempt at a rescue will mean nothing, seeing as you're already too late. But please, do try, it'll be great amusement." He said, and then turned his attention to Steve and walked over to him. Steve just stared up a him, never flinching a bit, when he saw Manes pick up a small pocket knife.

"No!" Clint yelled as Manes shoved it into Steve's side, causing him to keel over and groan in pain. Even more blood started pooling out as Manes yanked it back out and threw it onto the table.

"I will destroy you for this!" Tony yelled at Manes, but it didn't faze him in the least. Steve panted and put his head back and stared at the ceiling, trying not to shout out in pain.

"Unfortunately, I will no longer be able to continue my little fun with you, Cap."

"C-cry me a-a r-river," Steve stuttered, closing his eyes.

"Funny you should say that," Manes nodded once to the much darker side of the room, and his soldiers went and drug out some sort of huge glass box. Tony looked at it in fear, afraid of what that might be. "You shall be the first to experience HYRDA's new torture device." Manes said too joyfully.

"L-lucky m-me," Steve said, still taking in short and raspy breaths.

"You see," Manes started saying, now directing his gaze to the Avengers on the screen, "This box has the ability of filling itself to the very top full of ice water, inspired by you Cap." Manes said with a glance at the almost unconscious Super-Soldier.

"It slowly starts at the bottom, and within thirty minutes, it will be full to the top with ice water. Which, believe me, is super cold."

"What are you planning, Manes?" Nat asked, speaking for the first time since the video started. The man just simply shrugged.

"I swore to myself Steve Rogers would taste my revenge, and well, this is sorta' it." he said with a wicked grin. "Guards, now." he commanded and they quickly moved to Steve's side and started untying him.

Nat and Tony exchanged looks as they moved to his feet to untie him. Steve must have thought he might have been able to get away, because he immediately head butted one soldier and did his best of a punch at the other guy.

Manes immediately moved to him to try to get him under control, and Steve somehow managed to punch that guy in the jaw as well.

"Go, Steve." Clint quietly chanted. Manes wiped away the blood on his chin and crawled up off the floor, and delivered an excruciatingly hard blow to Steve's rib with a weird metal block from the table. Steve started jerking uncontrollably, like he was being shocked with electricity, and his eyes rolled to the back of his head as he fell to the ground.

"Steve!" Tony yelled, and Manes stood up and put a boot to Steve's back while still wiping away the blood from his chin from Steve's punch.

"Oh, relax, he's only unconscious. Guards, cease him." The anger started to crack through his calm demeanor as the two HYRDA soldiers immediately rushed to his side and yanked him up by the arms and dragged him to the contraption, and Steve's head just lolled to the side.

They started opening the door, when Manes stopped them abruptly. "Wait! I want him awake for this," he said and then suddenly he slapped his hand as hard as he possibly could across Steve's face, definitely waking him up.

Steve startled awake with a cry of pain, eyes full of fear until he realized where he was and what was going on. Then a stoic look took it's place, but he still sucked in air desperately as they threw him into the box. And one soldier tied his hands to the ceiling, while the other soldier tied his feet to the bottom of the glass box.

Steve weakly pulled at the ropes to break them, but nothing happened. The soldiers stepped out of the box and slammed the door shut, leaving Steve tied to the ceiling and floor. "Now." Manes said and one of the guards flipped on a switch and water slowly started pouring in at the bottom. Steve pulled and tugged but nothing happened.

A different guard went and flipped another switch. "Just in case you are wondering what'll happen now, you see, my guards just flipped a lever that will cause this machine to slowly start pouring water in, and will only stop if the box is broken, or opened. But you see my other guard just flipped a switch that locks this door and it can not be re-opened."

"And this glass is non-penetrable; but please, be my guest and try." Manes said and then started walking to the door, and opening, but before leaving he turned back to the camera.

"Oh, and I'm going to leave this on so you can watch your best friend freeze to death because you guys were too careless." He said with an evil laugh, "If you want to try and rescue your friend, you've got thirty minutes. Any later, and all you'll be finding is, well, I believe you call him, Capsicle?" He asked before leaving the room and not coming back. Tony was infuriated beyond imagination.

"Steve! Steve, can you hear me?" Tony yelled, because Steve's head had just lolled to the side again.

"Steve, buddy, come on, can you hear us?" Clint also shouted.

"Come on, Steve." Tony said, voice barely audible. The emotion he was feeling right now was indescribable, but if he could, a few of the words he'd use would be; guilt, horror, sadness, anger, pain, sorrow, and fear of losing his best friend.

Steve's head slowly went to the side, and back a few times, before his eyes very slowly started fluttering open. Once they did, his head weakly came up and his eyes searched his surroundings, looking for something familiar.

"Steve," Nat said, and Steve's eyes immediately met with the monitor. "Steve, we're coming for you, okay? Just hang in there." She said as Bruce was already on the phone explaining to S.H.I.E.L.D what was going on and where they were going. A small sigh escaped Steve's lips as he looked down and shook his head.

"Don't. It's too risky, just don't worry about me, worry about all the others on Manes revenge list. It wouldn't be worth the trouble to rescue me. J-just take d-down Manes." Steve started getting breathless towards the end from using his voice so much, loss of blood, and the fact that the water was already up to his knees and there was nothing he could do about.

"Steve, we are coming to rescue you and there is no way you're going to stop it. So stop trying to play the hero card and instead just do your part and stay awake until we get there, understand Soldier?" Nat said, and a small, weak smile spread across Steve's unnaturally pale lips. He shakily nodded his head at her once, before his head started slowly drooping, but he quickly stopped it from going any further.

Satisfied he would stay awake, they all immediately headed to the waiting Quinjet outside; since they had just gotten back from a phony mission, they were all prepared for battle.

* * *

The next ten minutes were excruciating for both, but especially Steve. He could feel the ice cold water slowly creeping up his thighs and panic rushed through him at the thought of freezing to death again.

Because this time he probably wouldn't make it out alive again. The dark, black sleep longed to claim him, and he so badly wanted to let it succumb him, but he was ordered not to.

But it was getting so incredibly hard to keep his consciousness, his vision kept blurring and dark spots would form in front of his eyes. The room was eerily quiet, and that certainly did not help his imagination.

Memories kept trying to flood through his mind much like the water in this box was trying to do as well. Memories of being in the plane, about to crash, and then feeling all of the broken bones inside of him and the ice water slowly claiming his life.

Memories of his childhood and his father poked and prodded at him until he had to allow them in. Pain erupted all through-out his body from every hit he had taken from Manes.

In a weird, messed up, twisted sort of way, Manes reminded Steve a lot of his father; a cruel, unrelenting jerk who thrived on seeing other people suffer.

By now the water was up to his waist, making his legs numb, and the rest of his body shiver uncontrollably. He felt like he was going into shock.

A knock on the door made his eyes jerk open; he hadn't even realized his eyes were closed. Manes walked in, looking all too happy with a smirk on his face.

"Looks, like your stupid friends are trying to rescue you after all." He said as he sat down and crossed his arms against his chest. "Ignorant fools." He said with a malicious chuckle.

"If you hurt them..." Steve threatened and Manes perked up.

"What? What's that?" He asked as he leaned forward and put a hand to his ear as if he was trying to hear him. "Is that the great Captain America threatening me? I guess he's not as great as everyone thinks he is. But, just so you know, if one of these so-called Avengers just as much puts one step on my ground, they will be killed; _understand_?" Manes said with a smile only a mad man could claim as he stood up and headed over to a lever.

He pulled it and suddenly the water got even colder, if that was possible, and started coming in faster. Steve sucked in a breath, fully aware of the limited oxygen in the glass box.

Suddenly, a loud beeping noise came overhead, and for once Steve was actually glad he was in the box, because with his Super-Soldier serum, his ears would probably be throbbing right now. He couldn't help but smirk a little at Manes covering his ears and groaning at the overly loud beeps.

"Looks like they're here!" Manes yelled over the loud beeping sound and stood up straighter. Steve let out a sigh of relief at the thought of his friends coming; then he hopefully wouldn't have to fight this darkness anymore, because either way, the battle with the unconsciousness would be over soon.

The water had risen up to his chest and he could feel his body starting to shut down, but he fought as hard as he could not to. The water was a lightish red color from all of the blood he had lost.

The blood was coming slower and slower, and that certainly was not a good thing. His body was going limp and it felt nearly impossible for him to hold his head up, since the water was rapidly creeping up his chest.

Suddenly, before Manes could pull out a weapon or even react, the door blew open, and he heard a very familiar whiz of mechanical equipment. He let out a feeble excuse of a sigh and a very small and weak smile.

"Thank God," He muttered as a flash of red and gold came flying into the room.

"What!? How did you get past my guards!?" Manes yelled at the mechanical savior as he pulled out a gun and fired it at him, but it didn't do any good. Apparently _all_ of HYRDA didn't know that bullets didn't work on Iron Man.

"Cap! Are you okay?" Tony shouted as he blasted Manes and threw him across the room. Steve tried to answer him, but his words came out garbled. He was confused at why nothing came out, when he noticed the water had covered his mouth.

He quickly, and feebly, tried to lift his head out of the water the best he could, but the water was coming much quicker now for some reason. Tony tried to quickly fly across the room to get to Steve, but was blown to the side by some blue force. Steve looked to his side to see Manes crawling up off the floor with a black gun in hand.

"Recognize this Captain?" Manes asked and Steve squinted his eyes to see it better, and fear washed over him when he realized what it was. "My great uncle developed this weapon, but you destroyed him before he could achieve greatness with it!"

So that's why Manes sought out revenge for Steve, because he had 'killed' his great uncle who just happened to be Red Skull.

He shot again, but Tony carefully dodged it and fired at Manes' gun, blowing it out of his hand, before turning his attention back to Steve.

"I'll break it with my repulsers!" He yelled before starting to take aim, but missing the glass box because Manes had thrown a table at an unsuspecting Iron Man. Steve could feel the water come up past his nose and his oxygen supply was cut off. He gasped for air, and only water came, an all too familiar circumstance.

He struggled and tried to get free from the ropes, but the water passed his eyes, forcing them shut as he tried to suck in air one more time, but failed. His consciousness started faltering, and he could hear Tony shout his name, before the darkness finally succumbed him.

* * *

"Steve, no!" Tony yelled as he saw the water cover up the top of his Captain's head. He aimed for the box again, but was cut off once again by the freakin' psychopath named Manes.

"I told you were too late! Now he's dead and it's all your fault!" He aimed the gun down at Tony who had fallen to the ground from his suit malfunctioning from the stupid HYDRA gun; no wonder Steve hated these guys.

He heard the gun cock and knew he had to act fast. He scooted back up against the wall trying to put distance between them.

"J.A.R.V.I.S, now!" Tony yelled and Manes started firing rapidly, when suddenly the bullets stopped just short of Tony and froze that way.

"What the-" Manes stumbled back as the bullets started changing directions, "What's going on!?" Tony stood up.

"What's going on is me-getting-my-tech-back-from-some-crazed-lunatic-who-thought-he-could-get-the-best-of-us-Avengers. But you listen to me, you mess with one of us you mess with all of us you son of a bitch!" Tony said, "J.A.R.V.I.S, let's light it up, shall we?" He asked and the blue bullets circled Manes.

"No! I'll get you for this! Hail HYRDA!" He yelled with struggle, before a huge blue explosion erupted form where Manes was standing, so Tony shielded his eyes from the blinding light. When it stopped he looked to where Manes was standing to find absolutely nothing.

"Yeah, no, I don't think you will." Tony said with a grin, glad that Manes was gone. Then reality suddenly kicked in and he turned to Steve. "Steve!" He yelled as he fired his repulsors at the glass and it shattered into millions of pieces, allowing all the water to flow freely out; apparently HYRDA hadn't ever met Iron Man. He quickly ran over the broken glass, crunching the whole way from metal meeting glass.

He looked at Steve who was unhealthily pale and his lips were tinged slightly blue. He quickly shot his lasers to burn the rope that tied Steve to the bottom of this stupid box, and then he shot at the top to burn those ropes.

As soon as the ropes burned off, Steve started falling, but Tony quickly caught his lifeless body in his arms and carefully laid him down on the part of the floor that wasn't covered in millions of pieces of glass. Tony took off his gloves as he looked down at him.

Steve's body just went limp as Tony checked for a pulse, and he was unbelievably relieved when he found an unsteady flutter under his hand, at least there was something. "I'm sorry, Steve, for what I'm about to do," he said and then took a deep breath and slapped a hand over Steve's face, feeling incredibly guilty while doing so.

Steve jerked awake with a yelp and panted heavily while he looked around. His eyes were glazed over as he frantically looked around trying to figure out what was going on. Tony flicked his faceplate up and gripped Steve's shoulders, gently shaking him.

"Hey, hey, Steve, look at me, it's me Tony. Come on, it's all right." Tony spoke gently and soothingly as Steve shook his head and grimaced. His eyes cleared and he looked up at Tony with those crystal blue, innocent eyes that made Tony feel awful for everything he's ever said to the guy . "It's okay, you're okay. Manes is gone, and you're safe now."

"S-Sorry, I m-missed i-it," Steve rasped out as Tony gently laid Steve back down from his sitting position and watched as Steve's eyes took on a some what wondrous look. "Ya' know, Bucky used to talk about how he thought Heaven was always warm," Steve slurred, "And how no matter what, there would always be heat."

Fear overtook Tony as he watched Steve continue to mumble and slur heavily."But I think there's heat and cold, I mean, what if som'ne liked the cold or the heat? It wouldn't be fair to th'm, and I don't think He would do that to them."

"Steve, hey, don't talk like that, you're getting delirious, you're probably hypothermic, I need you to stay with me, okay?" Steve very, very, weakly and slowly nodded.

" 'M sorry, T-Tony," Cap said, and suddenly his eyes rolled to the back of his head, and he blew out a final breath.

"No!" Tony grabbed his shoulders and started shaking him, before starting to do compressions.

"Sir, he seems to have gone into cardiac arrest." Tony continued doing CPR, but it didn't seem to be working.

"J.A.R.V.I.S, what are his injuries?" He asked frantically.

"He seems to have had his stomach re-punctured, and his internal temperature is 80.1 degrees, and he has even more injures, but they are less severe, Sir." J.A.R.V.I.S, said, confirming his suspicions about hypothermia.

"J.A.R.V.I.S, I'm going to try and shock him," Tony said as he prepared his suit for it, he and J.A.R.V.I.S had been working on several new abilities for his suit, and the ability to shock was one of them.

"I would highly recommend not doing that, Sir, they are still experimental. If anything, I would recommend using a HYRDA weapon to do so." Tony sighed and shook his head as he continued preparing himself and his suit.

"J.A.R.V.I.S, one of the new abilities worked with taking Manes down, why shouldn't this one work? And there is no way I'm going to bring Steve back to life with a HYRDA weapon, and who knows what they've got in those things? Ya' know what, I don't give a crap about your opinion right now, just let me do this, we've got nothing to lose."

Tony took in another deep breath as he placed his now gloved hands on top of Steve's still chest, and clenched his teeth; Steve's life was literally in Tony's hands right now. "J.A.R.V.I.S, crank it up to 35 percent," Tony said, trying to push down the well of emotions on his throat.

Little bits of bright blue sparks flew out from under his suits gloves and above Steve's chest where they connected.

Steve's body started jerking, but when Tony stopped, nothing happened, making Tony's heart, well, Arc Reactor, drop, but he wasn't about to give up. He re-placed his his hands on his chest again, and told the AI to crank it up to 45.

It started again, and Steve's body shook more and the blue electricity was now powerful enough that it was lighting up the dark room from just the amount Tony was using to shock Steve.

He stopped, and held his breath, praying that it worked, he was just about ready to do it again, when suddenly he heard a gasp of air come from Steve. He looked down at the Soldier who started coughing and gasping for air.

Relief flowed all throughout Tony. "Oh, thank You, God," Tony whispered, "Steve, hey, hey, easy, look at me." Tony commanded again when he noticed Cap start coughing up blood. Steve's hand went up to his throat as he continued struggling for air.

He slowly and extremely weakly looked up at Tony still gasping for air, but his couching fit had slowed down. Tony placed a hand softly on Steve's shoulder and gently made him lay back down.

"It's okay, just count with me and breathe with me," Tony said calmly, and they did the same thing they had done just the night before when Steve had had a panic attack. Man, only a night ago everyone was just sitting in the living room talking.

When they finished the breathing exercise, Steve's breathing had slowly gotten back to being fairly normal. So Tony took off his gloves and slowly put them on an incoherent Steve Rogers who was definitely hypothermic.

"J.A.R.V.I.S, crank the heat up enough to start warming him up, but keep it a careful rise, we can't warm him up to much too fast."

Satisfied that J.A.R.V.I.S would know what Tony meant, he moved on to taking his boots off and slipping them on Steve for the warmth; at least it was fairly warm in the room, but it didn't help they were surrounded by water that had soaked the floors.

Tony cut off the bottom part of Steve's pants and used it to apply pressure to the wound. Tony could hear several people's gaits running down the hallway and he prayed it was the rest of the Avengers and not more HYRDA.

His prayer was fulfilled as Tasha, Clint and Bruce came running in and were across the room and by his side in less than a second. Steve was trying to push Tony's hands down because he was trying to put a sufficient amount of pressure on the wounds.

Without a word, Clint and Bruce were holding Steve's hands away from the wound, and Tasha had moved to where Steve's head was and gently laid it on her lap as she caringly stroked the hair out of his eyes in an attempt of calming him down.

She spoke soothingly to him in Russian, and it seemed to be working. And if they were in any other situation, Tony would have made some remark at her being so kind.

"What happened?" Clint asked as he continued to hold Steve's hands away, which was easy considering how weak he was; if it was any other time Steve would have won easily.

"When I came in the water was up to his neck, and I couldn't get him out because of Manes, and-"

"Wait, where is he?" Clint asked as he looked around for his body somewhere.

"He evaporated." Clint and Bruce looked at him like he was crazy; they looked at him like that a lot. "He was shooting some weird kind of gun at me, so I used his weapon against him, and he evaporated from it." Bruce looked at him skeptically, "Hey, I know, it doesn't make since. I think HYDRA's rewritten the laws of physics. Anyway, after he evaporated I managed to break the glass and untie Steve. I laid him down here, when, he, he died."

He said, and this got everyone's attention, even Tasha whose gaze jerked up as she looked at him. Tony almost found it amusing, except he knew exactly why they were doing it, but each one of their grips on Steve tightened and Nat held him closer to her.

"How did you bring him back?" Bruce asked, still trying to take in what he had just said.

"I shocked him with my suit." Tony said, feeling guilty saying it out loud; he could have made it so much worse doing that, but what else was he supposed to do? He couldn't just let Steve die right in front of him.

"So, it worked?" Bruce asked, since he had helped Tony develop the weapon that helped Steve. He remembered Steve coming down into the lab to talk and keep Tony from going insane.

He knew just when to come talk to Tony and be good company, but he also knew just when to leave him be.

"Yeah, it did." Tony said with a small smile, who knew that day when Steve and him had discussed this new weapon, he would be using it later to save his life?

Steve started stirring again and mumbling incoherently about how he needed to make sure everyone was okay; leave it to Captain America to make sure everyone else is okay when he's basically past death's door and on his way up the stairs.

"Hey, Steve, Steve, look, it's okay. Everyone's alright, Manes is gone, we're all here." Clint said, and Steve must have just barely heard him because he nodded his head and slowly relaxed a little bit. His eyes closed as if he was finally able to rest now that his teammates were safe. Thankfully, he was only sleeping.

"How did you guys get rid of the HYRDA soldiers?"

"We had a little help from S.H.I.E.L.D," Bruce said, "They should be here any second with medical." Tony sighed a sigh of relief, but continued putting pressure to the wounds.

About a minute had passed when several S.H.I.E.L.D agents had finally shown up with a gurney and some other medical stuff. One of the three Avengers must have called in S.H.I.E.L.D and requested medical.

The agents immediately took Steve's limp body away from them and placed him on the gurney with an oxygen mask and hooked up some IV's to him, before wheeling him down the hallway, leaving four Avengers behind.

Tasha looked like she was going to cry, but immediately looked down to hide the tears slowly cascading down her cheeks. This scene felt all too familiar for Tony.

"What do we do now?" Clint asked, and Bruce replied with two simple words that were full of something Cap would say, "We wait."

* * *

The four Avengers silently waited right outside of Steve's room, yearning to hear some news about their Leader. It had been a good four hours since he had been brought into this hospital, and they were just about to go crazy.

Clint was sitting on the floor, legs out and head up against the wall, Natasha was in one of the hard, white plastic chairs with her legs crossed, hands folded, and head bowed in a silent prayer, Bruce was standing and leaning up against the wall, arms crossed and fingers tapping lightly on his biceps, while Tony paced the small area of the hallway next to Steve's room eagerly anticipating some news.

Each one of them had been asked to join a debriefing with the other S.H.I.E.L.D agents, but they had all declined, wanting to be near Steve.

Another thirty minutes passed before a doctor finally came out, and each one of them were on their feet in an instant. He looked at them all with a grim expression on his face.

"He's alive." He said with a small, tight smile and all of them let out a breath without even realizing they were holding it. "He lost a ton of blood, his body temperature was under 70 degrees when he was brought in, and if that wasn't enough, his stomach had been re-punctured; it truly is a miracle he survived. Thankfully, this time he was able to be out the entire time thanks to Dr. Banners new treatment. The drug is wearing off of him now."

"Can we seem him now?" Tasha asked hopefully, which was extremely uncommon for her.

"Well, I guess so, he'll probably be awake, but I recommend on being fairly short with your visits." He said with a firm smile, before walking on down the hallway.

Tony took a deep breath before they all opened the door to see Steve laying on the bed, rather beat up which was expectant, and a bunch of tubes hooked up to him. His head was to the side and his eyes were closed, but as soon as they walked in, his eyes fluttered open and he started to sit up, but grimaced in doing so, and just settled for rolling onto his back.

"Hey, Cap," Clint said and Steve smiled weakly.

"Hey guys," he said, his voice hoarse, but hey, at least he didn't cough this time. "Is everyone okay?" He asked and Tony rolled his eyes as he walked over to him.

"Yeah, yeah, Rogers, we're all okay," He said in exasperation, but care and concern laced his words. Steve must have noticed because he smiled in return of his comment. "It's you we're worried about." He said as he placed a hand on Steve's shoulder, followed by Clint placing a hand on his leg and Bruce placing a hand on his other shoulder.

"I'm okay," He said calmly, but everything else in the room practically shouted the opposite. Everyone released their hold on their Captain and Tony noticed Tasha still in the back of the room behind them. She slowly walked up to Steve and gently stroked his hair out of his eyes, much like she had done when he was severely injured after being tortured.

"You're okay," She said and Steve slowly smiled. She gently cupped his face and leaned down to connect his lips with hers. Tony's jaw practically dropped at the sight of his two friends kissing. Bruce and Clint quickly started leaving the room, when they both simultaneously grabbed Tony's arms, getting his attention so they could all leave. Once out in the hallway, Tony spoke up.

"I didn't know those two had a 'thing'." He said in complete and utter shock. Clint and Bruce just chuckled.

"Oh, come on, you seriously didn't notice that? Those two are so in love with each other; it's painfully obvious. Man, you'd think a genius and a playboy would pick up on that. Tsk, tsk, tsk."

"Yeah, I mean, I noticed they had a spark from when they first met." Bruce said.

"Yeah, and when they both got teamed up to take down the Winter Soldier, that's when it was so obvious." Tony just stood there dumbfounded as Clint went on, "Man, you need to brush up on your skills."

* * *

Natasha slowly broke the kiss and stared into Steve's eyes for a moment before backing off and turning her back to him. "ой, что я сделал?(Oh, what have I done?)" She mumbled to herself.

"Вы знаете , я действительно наслаждался его. (You know, I did enjoy it.)" Someone said from behind her, and she whipped around to see Steve smiling.

"You speak Russian?" She asked in bewilderment and embarrassment because of how many times she had spoken it thinking no one else understood. He quietly chuckled.

"I have a friend who speaks it fluently, and I even fought in Russia during the war. So, yeah, I know how to speak Russian."

"Why didn't you tell me?" She asked, almost angry at him, but he simply shrugged.

"Didn't think it was necessary," He said with that same genuine smile. "But I do think this is necessary;" He paused and took a deep breath while fiddling with his fingers, "Nat, Ты мне нравишься, (I like you,) У меня есть в течение длительного времени. (I have for a long time.)" A smile spread across her lips at his words, and she walked over to the bed and sat down on the edge, he looked up at her, slight embarrassment in his eyes.

"I like you, too, Steve, I just, I've always thought love was a child's game, and that I'd never have any part of a relationship, but I," She paused as she looked at him, she had always been an ice cold spy who doubled as an assassin, but now somehow, this guy had weaved his way into her heart. "But I guess I was wrong. I do like you, a lot." He smiled.

"Nat, this feels insanely weird to ask, but will you be my, uh, girlfriend?" He asked, and he sounded and looked just like a shy teenage boy who was fumbling over his words to ask a girl out to Prom or something. She chuckled.

"конечно. (Of course,)" She said before she placed a light kiss to his lips and patted his knee gently. "I guess I was sort of rude to the others for cutting them off right away." She said as she got up and headed for the door.

"Hey, Nat," He said, and she turned around to look at him, "Couldn't have been a better way of doing so." Heat crept up her neck and redness tinted her cheeks. She smiled as she opened he door and left, not being able to believe what just happened.

* * *

"You're kidding me! That was not a point!" Tony said as he and Clint were playing ping-pong in the Tower's living room.

"It is so! J.A.R.V.I.S, put it on the TV and prove to Tony it was a point." Clint said in his usual cocky way, the AI put the video up on the 80 inch monitor, and it was actually a point; for Tony.

"Ha! It is a point, just not for you!" Tony said, bubbling with laughter. Steve chuckled at his friend's banter from his spot on the couch; it had been a month since the whole Manes and HYRDA, and torture fiasco, and Steve was finally allowed to spend the rest of his healing time at the Tower.

Now everybody was making extra sure that nothing happened to Steve in case somebody else was out there trying to kidnap Steve. They actually mollycoddled Steve quite a bit, which irritated him sometimes, but it actually brought some joy to him knowing how much his teammates really cared.

"Okay, Tony, it's already midnight and I don't know about you, but I am extremely tired, so if you'll excuse me, I'm heading for bed." Nat said as she got up off the couch seat next to Steve.

"Goodnight, Nat," Steve said, smiling at his girlfriend; they hadn't really been on official dates yet since he had just recently gotten out of the hospital, but they had eaten lunch together and hung out at the hospital anyway.

"Goodnight, Steve," She said with a smile as she bent down and tipped his chin up to kiss him. After a few seconds she pulled away and ruffled his hair, before walking out of the room. He looked over at Tony who was acting like he was about to throw up, but he could see the twerk of a smile in his eyes. Steve just rolled his eyes as he smiled.

"Yeah, I think I'm heading for bed, too. Goodnight, guys." Bruce said as he exited the room.

"Me too, fun game, Tony," Clint said as he tossed his paddle down with one of those smirks that were held especially for him beating Tony at any kind of game.

"Hey, you only beat me by five points!" Tony said as Clint left the room with a wave. Tony huffed as he started putting the ping-pong table away. Steve got up and walked over with a limp and his crutches and started helping him. Tony put up his hand in a gesture to stop him.

"Uh-uh, you're still injured and believe me you do not want to re-rip open those stitches." Tony said and Steve gave him a questioning look. "Hey, I'm tired cut me some slack, not everything I say can be brilliant." Steve was now the one to huff as he continued helping him, "Hey, what did I tell you?"

Steve sighed and he backed off with both his hands up in surrender. He then limped over to the huge ceiling to floor windows and sat down in one of the chairs. Rain drizzled down from the clouds above and ran down the windows. When Tony was done putting it away, he walked over to Steve and took a seat in the chair beside him.

"Listen," Tony started saying and Steve directed his gaze at Tony, "There's something I've been meaning to talk to you about." Tony said, his features suddenly full of seriousness.

"Yeah?"

"I mean, I would have done it sooner, but you were in the hospital, and then you were in the hospital again, and well, I wasn't sure if I should bring it up then, so now I thought, 'hey, why not?' but I'm not sure if that was a good decisio-"

"Tony?" Steve asked, interrupting his little ramble. Tony sighed and looked down.

"We read your Journal." he said, voice barely audible. Shock rolled over Steve, and was replaced with some anger, and slight hurt that they would betray his trust. He was so deep in thought he didn't even realize Tony rambling on again.

"I'm so sorry, I know it was wrong, and I'm sorry, if you hate us, I completely understand, and if you feel the urge to go hit some punching bags right now, I totally understand, but we just wanted to know a little more about you, ya' know? I mean, you know everything about us, and we know nothing about you, and you're our Leader, we just wante-"

"Tony." Steve said firmly, grabbing the billionaire's attention, "Look, I am kind of mad at you guys for betraying my trust like that, but I guess I understand what you mean. It's just, how much did you read?" He asked hesitantly, not really wanting to know the answer. Tony looked down and then out the window before fixing his eyes on Steve.

"We read enough to know a little more about your childhood." Tony said quietly and sheer humility washed over Steve as he looked anywhere and everywhere except Tony. So, he just stared out the window, wanting to block out everything in the cruel, harsh world.

He had failed his mom, and he hated the thought of that, and what he hated even more was the fact that he couldn't rid himself of the memories no matter what. "Is it true? Did he," Tony swallowed, afraid of the answer, "Hit you?" Tony asked and the young blonde in front of him just stared solemnly out the window.

Finally after about fifteen seconds, he slowly nodded, never taking his eyes off of the windows and the dark city below. "Oh, Steve, I'm sorry,"

"It doesn't matter," Steve said, with more anger in his words than Tony had ever heard, but it wasn't anger at Tony, it was more like anger at himself. Steve tried to get up and leave but fell to his knees from not having his crutches.

Tony was immediately by his side, but he just covered his face with his hands and shook his head; mumbling incoherently, but Tony still caught a few words. "It's all my fault, I failed her, I failed her," He repeated over and over.

"Steve, it's not your fault," Tony said, placing a hand gently on Steve's shoulder, but Steve just shrugged it off. He finally removed his hands and stared at the ground, but Tony could see the stream of tears running down Steve's cheeks; and come to think of it, this was the first time Tony had ever seen his Captain cry.

"It is too my fault, I could have saved her from it, I could have stopped it from ever happening, if only I hadn't been so, _so weak_. So worthless and weak. I don't deserve to be Captain America or the Leader of the Avengers, I never have. I've failed everyone I knew; I failed Bucky when he fell off of the train because of me, and that I didn't go look for him, I failed Peggy because I couldn't get back from that stupid plane in time, I failed Coulson, a guy I had hardly known, I failed all of my comrades in the war, and Colonel Philips, and S.H.I.E.L.D, and all of you guys, all the Avengers."

Steve said, voice quieting as he looked somberly at the ground, hands folded in his lap. Tony took this moment to place his hand on Steve's shoulder again, which he didn't shrug off, and apologize for something he had said a long time ago.

"Steve, you didn't fail us, you didn't fail anybody, alright? There was nothing you could do to stop Bucky from falling off that train and becoming the Winter Soldier, and there was nothing you could about Peggy, and with Coulson, that was not your fault.

He knew he shouldn't have faced Loki alone, but he did it anyway, he let his confidence get the best of him, and you have never failed any of us Avengers. Never. If anything, we've failed you." This got Steve to look at him in confusion, but Tony just sighed, "Steve, I apologize for what I said about you not having anything special than what they gave you in the bottle, I was wrong, and I'm sor-"

"Oh, Tony, that was just from that scepter, you had every right to say those things."

"No, Steve, I didn't, okay? I was so horribly and utterly wrong about that. I guess I was just, I was angry." Steve looked at him again in confusion, and this time, Tony was the one who looked down in shame, "I was angry because I had always been super thankful I'd never have to meet you, but I had been wrong, see, all those years my father compared me to you, and well, it had always made me resent you, but now I realize that it had been all his fault, I had just been blaming you, because it was easier than blaming my father, and, myself.

I guess I never helped the case of him disliking me, because I always acted out for attention. So when I first met you, I just said some of the most hurtful things I could think of, and I'm sorry." Tony said looking back up at Steve who was now looking out the window again. "None of those things, Coulson, Bucky, Peggy, Philips, your mom, there was absolutely nothing you could have done to prevent that.

Okay? Because I know you, and if you could have, you would have." Tony said firmly, hopefully getting it to sink in to him. Steve finally looked at him, and there was some weird kind of emotion in his eyes. It was almost like he was starting to realize it. He slowly nodded with a swallow.

"I guess so," He said, voice barely above a whisper. "I just," He sighed looking up to try and keep the tears in his eyes, but his voice still broke. "I don't want to be weak anymore. I'm sick and tired of being weak, being weak is what caused me to not be able to help the people I love. I just don't want to be weak anymore."

"And you don't have to be, we'll be here to help you, Steve, you're not alone anymore." Tony said with a smile, earning one back from Steve, who stopped looking at the ceiling and looked over at Tony.

"Thanks, Tony," Steve said with one of those genuine smiles that only Steve could ever possess. Tony shrugged and helped Steve get up off the floor and handed him his crutches. Steve took them with a nod of thanks and headed over to the couch. "I think I'm just going to sleep here tonight, if that's okay?" Tony chuckled at his politeness.

"Yeah, Steve, that's fine." Tony said, as he helped Steve sit down. "Goodnight, Steve," Steve smiled up at him.

"Goodnight, Tony."

* * *

Steve awoke from a nightmare, panting and sweating just like usual, but this time there was something else going on, too, he felt a heavy weight over most of his body.

He looked down to see Clint and Bruce laying next to his legs and each of them holding on to them, confused as to why they were doing this, he then looked over at his sides, to see Tony next to him, lightly snoring, and Tasha on his other side, arms wrapped around his arm and head lightly resting on his shoulder.

He smiled as he realized why they were doing this. He had decided to just sleep in the living room, because he figured it would be awfully hard to have to go up several stories with his crutches, even though he'd use an elevator of course.

And apparently the team had thought of the idea to come keep him company. Little did he know, that they had also stuck a piece of paper in his Journal explaining how amazing Steve Rogers truly was.

He smiled as Tony's words echoed in his head, 'you're not alone anymore.', and Steve was now starting to believe, just maybe he wasn't.


End file.
